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LELAND STANFORD JUNIOR UNIVERSITY PUBLICATIONS
PSYCHICAL RESEARCH MONOGRAPH NO. 1
EXPERIMENTS
IN
PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
AT
LELAND STANFORD JUNIOR UNIVERSITY
BY
JOHN EDGAR (^OOVER
Fellow in Psychical Research and Assistant Professor of Psychology
With a Foreword by DAVID STARR JORDAN, Chancellor
Emeritus; an Introduction by Professor FRANK ANGELL,
Head of Department of Psychology; and a Part by Professor
LILLIEN J. MARTIN, Professor Emeritus of Psychology
From the Division of Psychical Research
Department of Psychology
STANFORD UNIVERSITY, CALIFORNIA
PUBLISHED BY THE UNIVERSITY
1917
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STAMroEo Univsksitt
Press
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DEDICATED
to
THOMAS WELTON STANFORD
Whose Wisdom in Providing Opportunities
for Scientific Investigation Has
Anticipated the Greatest Need
of Psychical Research
/
i?'^
^^^>A
V
765178
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FOREWORD
Science is human experience tested and set in order. It involves not
alone the experience of the individual, but so far as may be, the accumu-
lated or recorded experience of the race, of which the experience of the
individual furnishes the basis of understanding. To enter the category
of science, the data on which generalized results are based must be fully
tested in order to eHminate personal equations whatever their form or
origin.
In the investigation of the varied phenomena embraced under the
term of "Psychical Research," as in any other department of knowledge,
the Scientific Method is the sole instrument on which we can depend. To
every apparent fact we must apply the tests of science : observation, ex-
periment, logic, and instruments of precision. That the phenomena in
this field are peculiarly baffling affords no ground for discouragement.
By the methods of precision they are reducible to scientific order, and
we may be sure that in this field as in any other we can safely follow
wherever Truth shall lead. Genuine knowledge can never run counter
to sound principles in human life.
But in this difficult borderland of psychology in which subjective
and objective mental conditions are closely intertangled, the investigator
finds it well to be cautious. Obvious explanations are seldom the true
ones, and generalizations hastily drawn from them may check the growth
of knowledge. In this field, perhaps above all others, the use of the
"method of intuition" as an instrument of precision is sadly out of
place. One supreme test of safety in generalization is the articulation
of supposed facts with the knowledge already tested and organized by
science.
The work in Psychical Research at Stanford University has rested
from the first on "the solid ground of nature." At the present stage, its
methods seem more important than its results, although the latter, while
not sensational, are unquestionably substantial.
David Starr Jordan.
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To believe is dangerous, to be unbelieving is equally
so; the Trutli, therefore, should be diligently sought
after, lest that a foolish opinion should lead you to
pronounce an unsound judgment. — PHiEDRUs: Fables,
Book III, id: I and 5, 6.
Hardly as yet has the surface of the facts called
"psychic" begun to be scratched for scientific purposes.
It is through following these facts, I am persuaded, that
the greatest scientific conquests of the coming genera-
tion will be achieved. Kiihn ist das Miihen, herrlich
der Lohn! — Wm. James: Final Impressions of a Psy-
chical Researcher, 1909, in Memories and Studies, New
York, 191 1, p. 206.
VI
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AUTHOR'S PREFACE
In a time when men's minds, scholars' minds, have been turned from
philosophy to science, from principles implicit in human experience to
principles empirical and eclectic, it is a strange anomaly that principles
of life which are vital enough to determine men's conduct in their most
serious concerns, and which are prevalent enough to be continuously op-
erative in every civilized and uncivilized portion of the globe, are at once
hailed by a small but important part of the learned world as the veritable
principles of life, challenged by another equally important part of the
learned world as groundless, and ignored by the great body of the re-
sponsible men of science as unworthy of that rigorous inspection by
which alone principles based upon the phenomena of the world may win
the imprimatur of scientific confirmation or refutation.
The sheer universality of human interest in, and human allegiance to,
one or another of the principles based upon psychical, or other "alleged '
phenomena, now classified in the field of Psychical Research, should con-
fer upon these phenomena the right to continuous serious scientific inves-
tigation regardless of the lack of promise which it seems to the general
body of the men of science to offer. It is no adequate defense to claim
that science has no time to go out of its way to combat the superstitions
and prejudices of men; for no matter to what extent superstition and
prejudice may be supported by these alleged phenomena, the phenomena
are initially accepted because it is believed they have been repeatedly ob-
served by trustworthy, even eminently qualified, observers.
Now that university education is shared by an increasingly large
proportion of the people in civilized countries, and scientific knowledge
is being widely disseminated, the obligation of science to the public, in
respect to these matters, is heavy and is becoming increasingly greater.
It is to be hoped that the situation will now improve, and that other cen-
ters of learning will also assume this obligation and thereby make cooper-
ative investigation possible.
The experiments described in this monograph fall into several
classes of investigations which are fairly closely related to each other,
and which are believed to be of fundamental importance to Psychical
Research. They are offered as some slight contribution to science, of
interest particularly to those who are more or less technically familiar
with Psychical Research ; possibly their less technical portions may inter-
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VIU AUTHOR S PREFACE
est the layman. Lest the latter, however, be disappointed in finding no
brief either for or against the general phenomena in this field, the assur-
ance must hereby be offered him that the research is undertaken with a
zeal for Truth, and is projected and controlled with an anxiety for the
strength of the bridge it is building, which must bear the strain of the
passage of men of learning, men of influence, men of science, from the
shore of accepted knowledge to the island of the not-yet-recognized.
Safety forbids bias or precipitancy. This laboratory report completes
the first stage of construction.
Herein will be found ( i ) a statistical method of experiment in Psy-
chical Research which, it is believed, will be acceptable to science and will
prove adequate for resolving doubt and controversy concerning ,the
alleged supernormal acquisition of knowledge (telepathy, lucidity or
clairvoyance, or communication from discarnate intelligences capable of
apprehending facts in our world) ; and (2) the results of the first appli-
cations of this method.
It will be readily apparent to the scholar that much of the mono-
graph has been written under great pressure, a circumstance regrettable
but unavoidable; the work of investigation has not been permitted to
suffer interruption, and it was not advisable to delay longer the first re-
port from our laboratory. Haste has not been made at the expense of
accuracy, however; and, although the literary quality of the exposition
has undoubtedly suffered, it is hoped that the reports of the various
researches will be found sufficiently clear and complete to serve their
purpose. It should be mentioned, perhaps, that various labor-saving appli-
ances have been utilized, such as calculating and adding machines, mathe-
matical tables, and the slide-rule; the last mentioned having been con-
sistently used in calculating percent?iges. Mathematical accuracy
sufficient for our purpose has certainly been attained. And deficiencies in
the plates must be credited to the writer's general ineptitude with India-
ink.
The Division of Psychical Research is indebted to Dr. Lillien Jane
Martin for Part V, a record of work which she has carried out independ-
ent of the Psychical Research Foundation ; and also for her zeal in the
work of equipping the Psychical Research laboratory.
The writer is under many special obligations to those who have con-
tributed to the investigations, or to the compilation of this monograph:
First and foremost to his colleagues in the Department of Psychology
for innumerable courtesies with respect not only to sound counsel but
also to the free use he has made of laboratory rooms, equipment, and
students of their classes ; to the many students who have rendered faith-
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AUTHOR S PREFACE IX
ful service in the experiments reported herein; to the California Psy-
chical Research Society for its generous cooperation in research in San
Francisco; to Professor Milo A. Tucker, and to Mr. G. P. W. Jensen,
for indispensable assistance in experiments with 'sensitives' in San Fran-
cisco; to Professor E. P. Cubberley, Dean of the School of Education,
for the generous loan of a dictaphone for two years; to the Assistant
Registrar, J. E. McDowell, for access to students' percentile grades; to
the Staff in the Library, particularly to Librarian G. T. Clark, and Miss
Lena M. Keller, for assistance in the compilation of the catalogue of
works in the psychical-research library; to the American Society for
Psychical Research, the American Journal of Psychology, and the Psy-
chological Review, for permission to use material published in their
pages; to students, J. T. Reynolds, D. C. Upp, F. S. Fearing and Miss
Else Nagel for faithful clerical and statistical assistance; and to many
others for kind offices too numerous for separate mention.
The Fellow in Psychical Research.
Stanford University,
July 27, 1917.
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CONTENTS
PAGE
Foreword. By Dr. David Starr Jordan v
Author's Preface vii
Index of Illustrations xv
Introduction. By Dr. Frank Angell xvii
PART I
THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE.
The Present Importance of the Problem 3
The Role of Telepathy as an Alternative Hypothesis to Spirit Commun-
ication 5
This Dominating Role of Telepathy Challenged 13
The Present Status of Telepathy 17
Further Experimental Work Imperative 23
Experiments on Thought-Transference 29
I. Guessing of Lotto-Block Numbers 31
Introduction 31
Method 35
Results 38
Number-Habits 43
Imagery 45
Conclusion 46
II. Guessing of Playing-Cards 48
Series I. Reagents Normal 48
Reagents 50
Method 51
Results 54
Analysis of Results 66
Illustration 67
Relation Between R Cases and Experimenter's Imagery 69
Relation Between R Cases and Congruity of Imagery 71
l^-^i^ Relation Between R Cases and Reagent's Feeling of Cer-
'^A tainty 73
^^ Variation in Distance 77
Variation in Time 77
Test for Retarded Effect 78
Statistical Treatment of Data by Use of Mathematical Formulae. . . 79
Application of Probability Formulae to Central Measures 80
Comparison of the Empirical with their Theoretical Distri-
butions 95
Application of Usual Statistical Formulae to Central and Other
Single Measures 105
Statistical Expectation of Reagents 109
Analysis of Experience no
Application of Our Results to the Making of a "Mental Telepathist" 118
Control Series with Corneal Reflection 121
Conclusion 123
xi
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Xll CONTENTS
PAGE
Series II. Reagents 'Sensitive' 125
The Reagents 125
The Results 126
Psychological Analysis of Experience 130
The Professional Psychics 130
The Private Psychics 137
Conclusion 142
III. "The Feeling of Being Stared At" 144
The Prevalence of Belief Among University Students 144
Series I. The Reagent Required to Judge "Yes" or "No" 146
Results 147
Qualitative Results 150
Conclusion 152
Series II. The Reagent Requested to Record his Experience 153
Results 154
Supplementary Experiments 156
Series III. Multiple Starers 158
Results 159
Conclusion 167
PART II.
EXPERIMENTS ON SUBLIMINAL IMPRESSION.
Orientation 171
Experiments 190
Division I. With the Wirthian Tachistoscope 191
Procedure 191
Results 192
Division II. With the Wundtian Tachistoscope 198
Procedure 198
Results 199
Division III. Peripheral Impression 205
Results 206
Division IV. Miscellaneous' Series 214
§1. Sumbliminal Impressions from Corneal Reflections 214
§11. Subliminal Impressions of Playing-Cards at a Distance 217
§111. The Whispering of the Stimulus 219
1. Letters and Digits 220
2. Playing-Cards 222
3. Numbers 222
§ IV. Involuntary Signals 223
Conclusion 224
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CONTENTS Xlll
PART III.
MENTAL HABIT. AND INDUCTIVE PROBABILITY.
PAGE
Mental Habit 230
The Influence of Mental Habit upon Judgment 230
Population by Age 231
Terms of Criminal Sentences 234
Estimates of Star-Magnitudes 240
Students* Grades 247
Temperature on Pike's Peak 249
Temperature in Mauritius, in the Greenwich Observatory, in Hert-
fordshire, and in Dundee 249
Cloudiness at Bremen 252
Rainfall in New England 252
Estimates of Time from Kymograph Time-Records 252
Estimates of Star-Transits 255
Estimates of Time and Space 262
Studies in Guessing 265
Distribution of the Number-Habit 271
Other Mental Habits 276
Explanatory Considerations 281
Application of Mental Habit to Experiments in Thought-Transference 291
Application of Mental Habit to Our Experiments on Subliminal Impression 309
Inductive Probability 313
Empirical and Theoretical Distributions 314
Empirical and Theoretical Central Measures 333
The Infinitesimal Probability 346
PART IV.
EXPERIMENTS IN SOUND ASSIMILATION.
Introduction 369
Division I. Nonsense- Syllables 373
Method 373
Results 375
Section i. Syllables with Initial and Final Consonantal Sounds 375
Section 11. Syllables with an Initial or Final Consonantal Sound 379
Section iii. The Respective Consonantal Sounds 381
Division II. Simulated English Text 386
Dictation 1 388
Dictation II 390
Dictation III 391
Dictation IV 393
Dictation V 395
Numerical Results 395
Introspections 397
Conclusion 401
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xrV CONTENTS
PART V.
CONTRIBUTIONS BY PROFESSOR LILLIEN JANE MARTIN.
PAGE
I. A Case of Pseudo- Prophecy 411
II. Local Ghosts and the Projection of Visual Images 413
III. An Experimental Study of the Subconscious 422
The Image Method versus the Automatic Writing and Speaking Methods
of Penetrating Below the Threshold of Consciousness 426
Automatic Speaking Method versus the Image Method 437
The Image Method versus the Pathological and the Psychoanalytical
Methods of Investigating the Subconscious 437
APPENDIX.
A. Tables 44i
B. Experiments in Long-Distance Thought-Transf erence 452
C. Grounds for Scientific Caution in the Acceptance of the "Proof" of
Thought-Transference 461
The Creery Experiments 463
The Smith-Blackburn Experiments 477
The "N"-Ray Delusion 495
Conclusion 499
D. Investigation with a "Trumpet" Medium. By the California Psychical
Research Society 503
Dr. Coover's Report 50S
1. Relation of the "Voices" to the Psychic's Physiological Processes... 506
2. Relation of the "Physical Phenomena" to the Psychic's Body 524
3. The Relation of the "Seance Personalities" to the Psychic's Mind... 535
E. Catalogue of Literature in the Library of Leland Stanford Junior University
Relating Directly or Indirectly to Psychical Research 551
Books 551
Periodicals and Proceedings 617
INDEXES.
Index of Names 625
Index of Subjects 629
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INDEX OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PLATE PAGB
I. Floor- Plan and Equipment of the Division of Psychical Research. xxiv
II. Showing Mental Habit in the guessing of Lotto-Blocks 44
III. The limits of chance deviation in R cases on Card, Color, Number,
and Suit, for sets of 50 to 10,000 experiments 91
IV. The same ; for sets of 50 to 1000 experiments 93
V. Distribution of R guesses on the Card 99
VI. Distribution of R guesses on the Color 99
VII. Distribution of R guesses on the Number loi
VIII. Distribution of R guesses on the Suit 102
IX. Distribution of guesses wholly wrong 104
X. Deviation from probability expected by 52 reagents on Card, Color,
Number and Suit, compared with the Limit of Chance and the
actual results iii
XI. Distribution of expected per cents of R cases compared with
chance distribution iii
XII. Distribution of the number of A grades and the number of A and
B grades given by one reagent. 100 reagents 113
XIII. Population of the United States by Age. Twelfth Census (1900). 232
XIV, The Same. Thirteenth Census (1910) 233
XV. Terms of criminal sentence in the United States. Eleventh
Census 235
XVI. Female sentences for grand larceny. 257 cases 236
XVII. Single commitments; actual sentence compared with sentence
permissible by law. 58 cases 237
XVIII. Terms of criminal sentence in England (Galton) 239
XIX. Magnitudes of the stars ; Students' Grades 243
XX. Corrected distribution of the Durchmusterung estimates 245
XXa. Estimates of star-magnitudes. Distribution of tenth magnitudes.. 246
XXI. Thermometric observations. Frequency of tenth degrees 251
XXII. Distribution of the final digit in judgments of various kinds over
the number series 253
XXIII. Distribution of estimates from kymograph time-records 254
XXIV. Star-transits. Distributions of tenths of a second, showing
r Equation decimale; Ages of the Latin dead 257
XXV. Star-transits (Continued). Showing independence of Viquation
decimale of practice, instrument, and voluntary correction 259
XXVI. Star-transits (Continued). Showing independence of Viquation
decimale of the special senses 261
XXVII. Time and space estimations, showing number-preference and the
"personal scale" 263
XXVIII. Guessing. Curves showing number-preferences 266
XXIX. Guessing (Continued). Curves showing a new type of "personal
scale" 269
XXX. Deviations from probability in the frequency the spots on playing-
cards were drawn and guessed, showing influence of mental
habit. 10,000 cases 270
XXXI. Frequency of occurrence of the respective spots in sets of 100 ex-
periments, as drawn and as guessed. Showing distribution of
mental habit among 100 reagents 272
XXXII. Number-preferences 273
XV
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Xvi INDEX OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PLATE ^^^^
XXXIII. Distribution of numbers, drawn and guessed in lOO experiments. . . 274
XXXIV. Distribution of numbers, drawn and guessed in 1000 experiments. . 275
XXXV. Distribution of red cards, drawn and guessed in 100 experiments. . 276
XXXVI. Deviations from probability in frequency of suits drawn and
guessed. 10,000 cases ^1
XXXVII. Distribution of suit drawn and guessed in 100 experiments 278
XXXVIII. Deviations from probability in frequency of individual cards drawn
and guessed in 10,000 experiments 279
XXXIX. Distribution of the individual card drawn and guessed in 100 ex-
periments 280
XL. Curves showing dependence of Viquation decimale upon calibra-
tion-marks 288
XLI. Frequency curves of deviations of estimates of star-magnitudes
from the Durchmusterung magnitudes, showing influence of
similar mental habits (Pickering) 295
XLII. Distributions of R cases in card-guessing 3^7
XLIII. Distributions of the occurrences of odd die-spots, and of white
balls drawn from an urn 319
XLIV. Distributions of the occurrences of a red card in drawings from a
shuffled pack, and in guesses of reagents 320
XLV. Distributions of "chance" events in the throwing of dice, and
drawing of balls from a bag 322
XL VI. Distributions of "chance" events in coin-tossing 324
XLVII. Distributions of "chance" events showing bias in dice 326
XLVIII. Runs in Monte Carlo Roulette, in coin-tossing, and to be expected
by chance 328
XLIX. Per cent of substitution for the respective simple consonantal
sounds heard through the dictaphone, telephone, and the air. . . 382
Plate A. Automatic writing. Observer M 431
Plate B. The same. Observer 0 435
Figure i. Characters used by Sidis 185
2. Characters used in the Wirthian tachistoscope 191
3. Characters used in the Wundtian tachistoscope 198
4. A comparison of the objective with the "personal scale" of the
meteorological observers on Pike's Peak 288
5. The arrangement of the 37 compartments in a Monte Carlo Roulette
wheel 328
6. "EDITOR" : Letters for a test in visual assimilation 404
7. Drawings made in a Smith-Blackburn experiment in thought-trans-
ference 481
8. The kymograph apparatus Opp. 508
9. Kymograph records, March 28 and April 4 Opp. 510
10. Respiration and pulse curves, "Psychic" normal 512 f.
11. The same. "Automatic" voice, "Katie" 514
12. The same. "Trumpet" voice, "Dr. Truman" 516 f.
13. The same. "Independent" voice, "Professor Wm. James" 518 f.
14. The same. Records from Miss Flatau 522
15. Smudge on kymograph record Opp. 526
16. The self-recording telegraph instrument Opp. 528
17. Record of contact on the scale-covers Opp. 530
18. Fabric imprint made by "James' " "right hand" Opp. 532
Fig. a.. Poster of the Memorial Arch made in 1903, and a photograph of it
taken after the earthquake in 1906 Opp. 412-
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INTRODUCTION
BY
PROFESSOR FRANK ANGELL
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Psychology has, up to the present, shown no dis-
position to make its own the problems of psychical
research ; yet probably no one will be found to deny
their importance. — Northcote W. Thomas : Thought-
Transference, London, 1905, p. 20.
Psychical Research is at present in disrepute among
scholars, largely because psychical researchers do not
take a logical psychological attitude toward the phe-
nomena they investigate. . . . The investigation of phe-
nomena which are alleged to be not in accordance with
accepted views of natural law, is a perfectly legitimate
activity. — Knight Dunlap: A System of Psycholotiy,
1912, p. 343.
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INTRODUCTION
In January of 191 2 the writer was informed by Dr. Jordan, then
President of the University, that Mr. Thomas Welton Stanford, brother
of Leland Stanford and himself one of the University Trustees, had
placed at the disposal of the University the sum of £10,000, the interest
of which was to be applied to investigations in the field of what may be
broadly termed Spiritualism and Psychical Research, and Dr. Jordan
asked if the Department of Psychology was willing to assume the grave
responsibility of applying the endowment to work in this field.
And here it must be frankly stated that the department felt that any
impulsive or hasty acceptance of Mr. Stanford's generous offer was out
of place; in justice to both Mr. Stanford and the University the matter
was one that called for thoughtful consideration. For it was obvious that
the implications inherent in investigations in psychic or spiritualistic
phenomena would give the undertaking a different character from that
obtaining in ordinary cases of endowments for scientific research. In the
first place the problems to be investigated were intimately connected with
religious beliefs and opinions of many devout persons, among them Mr.
Stanford himself, whose house in Melbourne has long been the home of
spiritualistic seances. But tenets of religious faith in St. Paul's sense of
"the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not
seen'' are beyond or above or at any rate outside, the methods of scientific
investigation ; the Department of Psychology is a scientific department of
the University and its methods of research must necessarily advance in
accordance with the canons of scientific methods, that is, accurate ob-
servation and careful verification of accessible phenomena. To subject
matters on which good men and true had based comforting and abiding
faith to the cold criticism of scientific reason would be, the writer felt,
not only a delicate but perhaps a thankless task. In the next place the
situation was further complicated in the country at large and especially
in California by the presence among the devout Spiritualists of many
false teachers who sought to exploit spiritualistic procedure for pecun-
iary profit with the natural result of injuring and discrediting the cause
of Spiritualism and perplexing those who wished to know who were
genuine leaders of the faith. The findings of the Seybert,CpfflMssion of
tjig Uqjversity of PprrnQYlyp^^fi had also contributed to the same result,
especially among the universities. Mr. Henry Seybert, well-known as an
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XX INTRODUCTION
earnest believer in Spiritualism, presented to the University of Pennsyl-
vania a sum of money sufficient to found a chair of philosophy and to
defray the expenses of a commission to investigate the "systems of
morals, religion, or philosophy . . . and particularly of modern Spirit-
ualism." This commission was composed of ten members, among them
Dr. W. Pepper, Provost of the University, Professor G. S. Fullerton, in-
cumbent of the Chair of Philosophy, and Dr. Weir Mitchell, the well-
known neurologist. To these were added Mr. T. R. Hazard, described as
an uncompromising believer in Spiritualism. The commission investi-
gated all the well-known professional mediums they could induce to come
to Philadelphia: their findings were uniformly unfavorable to the pre-
tensions of the mediums and, in most cases, they reported fraud. Among
the conditions, consequently, which gave the Department pause in coming
to a decision were what Sir W. F. Barrett has termed "the scornful at-
titude of the scientific world" together with the somewhat delicate nature
of Psychical Research on account of religious implications. As far as
Mr. Stanford's attitude was concerned it was all the University could
wish ; the endowment was wholly unconditioned and there were no limits
as regards time and no suggestions as regards problems or results. In
these respects, therefore, there was no reason why the University should
not gladly accept the endowment. In addition the carte blanche given by
Mr. Stanford freed the department from the feeling that it would be un-
duly hampered in its investigations by religious complications; it was
simply to be a matter of scientific investigation.
• The question then arose of whether in view of Professor Sidgwick*s
authoritative utterance to the effect that Psychical Research so far as he
could tell, had made no discernible progress in the last twenty years, the
field was not a slough of despond through which no scientific progress
was possible. The writer's opinion was that intensive investigation by
trained psychologists devoting themselves wholly to this work, beginning
with the simpler problems, would bring forth results of scientific value,
though manifestly if Sidgwick's view of the impracticable nature of the
field was even approximately correct, but slow progress could be ex-
pected. However, before coming to any final decision in the matter,
letters were sent to the psychology departments of other universities ask-
ing their opinion of the probable worth of investigations in this field.
The answers were uniformly favorable to the undertaking and from two
especially, Cornell University and the University of California, there
came valuable suggestions in regard to problems and to methods of
investigation.
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INTRODUCTION XXI
Feeling then that the work could be taken up in fairness both to the
University and to Mr. Stanford the Department of Psychology accepted
the responsibility of administering the endowment. The endowment
itself was large enough to defray the expenses of a Fellowship, to refit
completely and equip the laboratory rooms assigned to the work by the
Department and to supplement the apparatus which the Department was
able to furnish with special instruments for Psychical Research. In addi-
tion Mr. Stanford placed about £ioo a year at the disposal of the Univer-
sity for the purchase of books on psychical research and finally added to
these donations the large collection of 'apports* produced in the seances
at his house in Melbourne.^
One of the reasons that may be assigned for the lack of progress in
Psychical Research and spirituahstic problems of which Professor Sidgwick
complains is in all probability that the greater part of the investigations
have been carried on by amateurs rather than by 'professionals/ by those
for whom the work was rather an avocation than a special calling. Thus
the Seybert Commission, as the report states, was made up of men whose
days were "already filled with duties which cannot be laid aside and who
are, therefore, able to devote but a small portion of their time to these
investigations." This condition is reflected in a great many of the pub-
lications on Psychical Research. The writers have taken up the investi-
gation in the spare hours of the day or the spare months of the year, and,
considering the complexity and elusiveness of the phenomena involved, it
is small wonder that progress has not been more marked. Closely allied
with this is another factor which has been of no advantage to Psychical
Research, either as regards its advancement or its standing in the eyes of
the scientific world, and that is the factor of attributing to amateurs in
psychical investigations the like authority which they enjoy in their
chosen profession. It must be said with the utmost frankness that the
mantle of Sir Oliver Lodge's great reputation as a physicist cannot be
stretched to cover his work in Psychical Research and it is doubtful if Sir
William Crooke's authority as a chemist has perceptibly swayed the minds
of his colleagues in chemistry towards spiritualistic belief. Obviously,
what is necessary for the advance of Psychical Research in the eyes of the
scientific world is precisely what all other kinds of scientific work de-
mand ; that is, the undivided time and attention of investigators possess-
1 Most of the books purchased with the funds are placed on the shelves of the
general library. The 'apports' are kept in 'display* cases in a special room adjoining
the laboratory. A plan of the laboratory for Psychical Research will be found at
the end of this Introduction (see Plate I, p. xxlv).
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XXll INTR(M>UCTION
ing a special training for their work. In this field, for example, it would
mean special extensive training in the psychology of motor automatisms
and of subliminal impressions, in the ideational and affective processes
underlying belief and conviction, in illusions of perception and the value
of evidence. Through the endowment of Mr. Stanford this university
was placed in a position to fulfill these conditions and to realize Sir Oliver
Lodge*s wishes expressed years ago, for *'a laboratory with special ap-
pliances." The selection of the incumbent of the fellowship was a matter
of no less importance than the facilities for work, and after diligent in-
quiry into the qualifications of men eligible for the position, the choice
was made of Dr. J. E. Coover, — a well-trained and able psychologist and
a mature man of highly judicial temperament. To dignify the fellowship
in the regard of the university world, the Trustees conferred on Dr.
Coover the rank of Assistant Professor. The investigations in this
volume made by Dr. Coover, and the vast mass of data gathered by him
are an index, or at least a partial index, of his unflagging devotion to the
work. I say partial index as the time taken for the investigation of
mediums in San Francisco was out of proportion to the amount of data
collected. Too frequently these trips were barren of all results, the in-
vestigator having spent hours in the dark awaiting manifestations which
either wholly failed to appear or appeared but feebly and infrequently.
In selecting problems for investigation the logical postulate of sim-
plicity was given great weight and for this reason "The Feeling of Being
Stared At" was the first to be chosen. For a belief in the efficacy of this
feeling is wide-spread among the students, it is a subject that admits of
easy experimentation, and, what is highly important, it is directly con-
nected with the general problem of telepathy. A further postulate of the
work was to shape the early investigations to the material in hand, — in
this case the numerous students taking work in psychology. Through
them there was given an opportunity for statistical studies in telepathy
along the lines laid down by the English Society for Psychical Research,
and in addition there was always the chance in dealing with a large num-
ber of individuals of discovering someone unusually gifted with tele-
pathic powers.
Other investigations which could be conducted in situ were on prob-
lems of subliminal activity, in mental habits or bias in forming judg-
ments, and on the implications of spoken words (sound assimilation) all
of which form necessary prolegomena to the clear understanding of spir-
itualistic manifestations.
In view of the mass of work in evidence in the pages of this report
it will be readily understood that time was lacking to go deeply into the
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INTRODUCTION XXlll
subject of automatic activities, of automatic writing or speaking. The
investigation of ^sensitives* or mediums was taken up after considerable
experience in methods and procedure in testing psychical manifestations
with students. The writer shares Professor Sir W. F. Barrett*s distrust
of professional or paid mediums and of working in the dark, but Dr.
Coover undertook investigations of this kind upon a guarantee of the
good faith of the ^sensitives' by the California Psychical Research
Society. It is to be regretted that the ^sensitives' felt unable to come to
the University to develop their manifestations where they were best fitted
to be tested and although a very cordial entente exists between Dr. Coover
and the California Psychical Research Society in carrying out his inves-
tigations, owing to the frequent indisposition of the 'sensitives,' the find-
ings of this part of the report are more scanty than could be wished.
Somewhere Sir Oliver Lodge has raised the question of the advis-
ability of investigating "that of which we are sure." "Why conduct ex-
periments in hypnotism or telepathy?" to which he answers that "Belief
is both the prelude to and the outcome of knowledge" and further "If a
fact or a theory has had a prima facie case made out for it, subsequent
investigation is necessary to examine and defend it."
Now so far as the matters of which Sir Oliver Lodge speaks are
accessible to scientific investigation, no one would venture to demur to
these statements. But the more intimate matters of religious faith the
writer does not feel are accessible to experimentation. As to many
phenomena which are often regarded as supernormal, the scientific world
has no doubt but that with patient and impartial investigation they will
ultimately be brought within the circle of the general laws of Psychology
as has been the case with the once baffling phenomena of Hypnotism.
But for the deeper-seated convictions of personal religion, scientific in-
vestigation is out of place.
In establishing the fellowship for Psychical Research Mr. Stanford
has made a substantial contribution toward delimiting the borders of
these two regions of human experience, and in the matter presented in
this volume the writer feels that a substantial contribution has been made
to that side of Psychical Research which is accessible to scientific investi-
gation.
Frank Angell.
Stanford University,
June I, 1917.
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XXIV
INTRODUCTION
P
I vJMil
M Hi
mmi :
iMmi
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EXPERIMENTS IN PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
PART I.
THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE.
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It is an obvious fact, but it is nevertheless a fact
which we must repeat as often as possible, that in no
way can psychical research be better aided than by con-
stant and varied experiments on Thought-Transference
in every form. — Frederic W. H. Myers: Proceedings
S.P.R., 1884, 2:217.
Upon one other interest I have not yet touched — to
me the weightiest and the farthest reaching of all.
No incident in my scientific career is more widely
known than the part I took many years ago in certain
psychic researches. Thirty years have passed since I
published an account of experiments tending to show
that outside our scientific knowledge there exists a
Force exercised by intelligence differing from the ordi-
nary intelligence conmion to mortals. ... I think I see
a little farther now. . . . And were I now introducing
for the first time these inquiries to the world of sci-
ence I should choose a starting-point different from
that of old. It would be well to begin with telepathy;
with the fundamental law, as I believe it to be, that
thoughts and images may be transferred from one
mind to another without the agency of the recognized
organs of sense — that knowledge may enter the human
mind without being communicated in any hitherto
known or recognized ways. — Sir William Crookes, in
The Presidential Address, delivered to the British As-
sociation for the Advancement of Science, at Bristol,
September 1898, (Proceedings S. P. R., 14:2-3).
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EXPERIMENTS IN PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
PART I.
THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE
The Present Importance of the Problem.
An examination of the literature of Psychical Research reveals the
paramount importance of Telepathy, or Thought-Transference,* among
all the various kinds of phenomena which fall within its field. Not only
have the principal psychical research societies given the investigation of
this process a prominent place in their formally announced aims of or-
ganization and given it their chief attention during the earlier years of
their work, but at the present time, when both the English and the
American societies are seeking indisputable evidence for the survival
of human personality beyond bodily death, this process threatens to cut
to the root of their proof.
The evidence regarded by the leaders in psychical research as the
most promising for proof of survival lies in the content of the utter-
ances (spoken, written or signaled) proceeding from an "automatist"
or a "psychic," usually entranced. That it cannot be regarded as merely
normal phenomena is most positively affirmed by those who have exam-
ined it with the greatest care ; and some proponents of its extra-normal
character are celebrated psychologists, whose professional and critical
judgment applies precisely to the normal and abnormal behavior of the
mind.
Professor James has several times given voice to his position. As
early as 1890 he wrote concerning Mrs. Piper's "messages" :
My later knowledge of her sittings and personal acquaintance with her has
led me ... to believe that she has supernormal powers, (p. 652). .
^Although these terms are sometimes assigned different meanings, they have
not been shown to be different kinds of functions, and for our purpose they may
be regarded as synonymous, meaning an influence of one mind upon another other-
wise than through the recognized sensory channels; the influence may take the
form of a sensation, an idea, a thought, a desire, an emotion, or any other assign-
able content of consciousness.
3
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4 THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE
And in another paragraph :
Taking everything that I know of Mrs. Piper into account, the result b to
make me feel as absolutely certain as I am of any personal fact in the world that
she knows things in her trances which she cannot possibly have heard in her wak-
ing state, (pp. 658-9).*
In 1896:
In the trances of this medium, I cannot resist the conviction that knowledge
appears which she has never gained by the ordinary waking use of her eyes and
ears and wits. (p. 319).*
And in 1909, when summing up his "Final Impressions" after twenty-
five years' experience in psychical research, concerning automatic utter-
ances he wrote :
When imposture has been checked off as far as possible, when chance coin-
cidence has been allowed for, when opportunities for normal knowledge on the
part of the subject have been noted, and skill in '^fishing" and following clues un-
wittingly furnished by the voice or face of bystanders have been counted in, those
who have the fullest acquaintance with the phenomena admit that in good me-
diums there is a residuum of knowledge displayed that can only be called super-
normal: the medium taps some source of information not open to ordinary peo-
ple. Myers used the word "telepathy" to indicate that the sitter's own thoughts
or feelings may be thus directly tapped, (pp. 188-9).
I wish to go on record for the presence, in the midst of all the humbug, of
really supernormal knowledge, [with strong mediums], (p. 200).*
Professor Floumoy, Professor of Psychology in the University of
Geneva, in 1900, said:
Taking everything into consideration, I am inclined to believe that Mile.
Smith, in truth, possesses real phenomena of clairvoyance, not, however, passing
beyond the possible limits of telepathy ... (p. 397).'
Podmore, one of the most conservative writers, and perhaps the
most critical student, in the English Society, in 1910, said:
The automatists unquestionably show that they possess information which
could not have reached their consciousness by normal means, and it is in tracing
this information to its source that the main interest of the inquiry and the main
burden of proof will be found, (p. 302).*
■ James : A record of observations of certain phenomena of trance. Proceed-
ings S. P. R., 1890, 6:651-659.
« James : The Will to Believe. New York, 1899.
• James: Memories and Studies. New York, 191 1.
• Floumoy, Th. : From India to the Planet Mars, a study of a case of som-
nambulism with glossolalia. (tr. Vermilye). New York, C1900.
• Podmore, Frank : The Newer Spiritualism. London, 1910.
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THE PRESENT IMPORTANCE OF THE PROBLEM
The Role of Telepathy as an Alternative Hypothesis to Spirit
Communication.
Sir Oliver Lodge, in his Presidential Address to the English So-
ciety for Psychical Research, in 1902, pointed out the alternate hy-
potheses for "trance lucidity and clairvoyance" as (i) Telepathy from
the living, and (2) Communication from the departed;^ and in 1913 he
restated his conviction that telepathy serves as an hypothetical explana-
tion for a multiplicity of phenomena, — "it is the minimum hypothesis." •
A classification of the factors involved in trance utterances was of-
fered by Frederick W. H. Myers :•
(a) Dreamlike and confused talk from the subliminal self,
(b) Facts impl3ring the perception of events occurring at a distance— dair-
vojrance,
(c) Facts existing in the minds of the sitters,
(d) Facts not known to sitters but which would have been known to the de-
parted persons.
And in the same place he affirms :
I believe, then, that I have good reason for ascribing many of these mes-
sages to definite surviving personalities, known while on earth to friends of mine
whose presence with Mrs. Thompson has evoked the messages, or to myself. I
believe that most of these messages are uttered through Mrs. Thompson's organ-
ism by spirits who for the time inform or "possess''' that organism; and that some
arc received by her spirit in the unseen world, directly from other spirits, and
are then partially remembered, so that the sensitive can record them on emerging
from the ecstatic state, (p. 73).
The seriousness of telepathy as an alternative hypothesis is stated
by N. W. Thomas, Professor Floumoy, and Professor Hyslop, among
others. Thomas :
The evidence for spiritualism . . . suffers ... so long as it is conceivable,
if perhaps improbable, that all the facts on which spiritualists rely, can be ex-
plained away by a telepathic hypothesis, (p. 178). . . . The extent of the evi-
dence for spiritualism must remain a matter of doubt, and be liable to reduction
in proportion as we can justly ascribe to telepathy the supercognitive phenomena
of trance mediumship. (pp. 178-9).**
'Lodge, Sir Oliver: President's address. Proceedings S, P, R,, 1902, 17:38.
« Lodge : Telepathy as a fact of experience. Bedrock, 1913, 2 : 57 ff.
•Myers, F. W. H. : On the trance-phenomena of Mrs. Thompson. Proceed-
ings S,P.R., 1902, 17:67-74.
*o Thomas, Northcote W. : Thought Transference. London, 1905.
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0 THOUGHT-TRANSFBEENCE
Flournoy:
Certain it is that telepathy takes away all evidential value from certain com-
munications received which might otherwise be thought to be spiritistic in char-
acter, (p. 209).**
Hyslop :
The crucial test of spiritism, in this and all other cases, must turn upon the
question of telepathy to furnish the data upon which any secondary consciousness
has to work."
This dilemma may be more adequately appreciated by the reader
after he gets a closer view of available illustrations in the discussions
offered by the leaders in psychical research by way of interpretation of
trance and other automatic communications. The alleged super-normal
character of these communications may be conceived to vary in a
graded series from (i) the simplest case of telepathic reproduction of
the sitter's present thought, through (2) similar reproduction of the
sitter's forgotten memories or unnoticed sensory impressions, (3) simi-
lar reproduction of the experience of some third living person ("tele-
pathic a trois"), and (4) the reproduction of the life memories of de-
ceased persons, to (5) more or less direct communication from persist-
ing and still active discamate personalities. The representative discus-
sions to be reviewed, although they may not be conveniently grouped in
a corresponding series, apply to one or more of the members of
the series.
First, The reproduction of the sitter's conscious or subliminal ex-
perience :
Professor James says :
"Telepathy" seems fairly established as a fact, though its frequency is still
questionable: . . . Our rule of presumption should lead us, then, to deny
spirits and to explain the Piper-phenomena by a mixture of fraud, subconscious
personation, lucky accident, and telepathy, whenever such an explanation remains
possible, (p. 34)-
[Yet,] the personation, fishing, guessing, using lucky hits, etc., in Mrs. Piper,
may be, as it were, the mechanical means by which "spirits" succeed in making her
living organism express their thought, however imperfectly, (p. 35).
I myself can perfectly imagine spirit-agency, and I find my mind vacillating
about it curiously, (p. 35). **
11 Flournoy, Theodore: Spiritism and Psychology, (tr. Carrington). Lon-
don, 191 1.
''Hyslop I A further record of observations of certain trance phenomena.
Proceedings S, P. R., 1901, 16:292.
i» James: Report on Mrs. Piper's Hodgson-control Proceedings S.P.R.,
1909, 33:2-121.
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THE PRESENT IMPORTANCE OF THE PROBLEM 7
Professor Floumoy says:
All the facts of lucidity (clairvoyance, second sight, etc) which arc attrib-
uted to Mile. Smith may be explained by telepathic impressions proceeding from
living persons, (p. 396)."
Dr. Hodgson, the skilled researcher, sent by the English S. P. R.
to investigate the "phenomena" of Mrs. Piper in America, made a vo-
luminous report in 1892, in which he said:
Putting aside all the facts which can be explained by direct thought-trans-
ference from the sitter, and considering simply the information given which was
not known to the sitter and which purports to come from "deceased" persons, but
which was known to, and afterwards verified by, distant living persons,— is there
sufficient ground for concluding that Phinuit is in direct conmiunication with
"deceased" persons, and that he is a deceased person himself as he alleges? I
think that the evidence here presented, together with that previously published, is
very far from sufficient to establish any such conclusion.
[The most satisfactory hypothesis seems to be that in her automatic trance]
a secondary personality of Mrs. Piper either erroneously believes itself to be, or
consciously and falsely pretends to be, the "spirit" of a deceased human being,
Phinuit (p. 57)."
But in a later report, which included evidences of the continued exist-
ence of the late "George Pelham," he concluded:
. . . Many of what were once difficulties to myself in the way of believing
that these phenomena were the result of the agency of "deceased" persons, have
been removed by the fuller evidence presented by [the later control] G. P. and
other communicators acting directly, (p. 405). . . . What my future beliefs
may be, I do not know. Rontgen suggested that certain special effects produced in
his famous experiments were due to rays whose vibrations were longitudinal to the
path of propagation, but later experiments have tended to show that they are due
to vibrations of the same general character as those with which we were
familiar, but of a higher order of frequency. And it may be that further experi-
ment in the lines of investigation before us may lead me to change my view; but
at the present time I cannot profess to have any doubt but that the chief "com-
municators," to whom I have referred in the foregoing pages, are veritably the
personalities that they claim to be, that they have survived the change we call
death, and that they have directly communicated with us whom we call living,
through Mrs. Piper's entranced organism, (pp. 405-6) .^^
1^ Floumoy, Th. : From India to the Planet Mars, a study of a case of som-
nambulism with glossolalia. (tr. Vermilye). New* York, cigoo.
^^ Hodgson, Richard: A record of observations of certain phenomena of
trance. Proceedings S. P. R., 1892, 8: 1-167.
1* Hodgson, Richard : A further record of observations of certain phenomena
of trance. Proceedings S.P,R,, 1897-8, 13:284-582.
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8 THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE
Concerning later Piper sittings, Sir Oliver Lodge, in 1909, said:
On the whole, they tend to render certain the existence of some outside in-
telligence or control, distinct from consciousness, and as far as I can judge from
the subconsciousness also, of Mrs. Piper or other medium. ... I feel that we
arc in secondary or tertiary touch — at least occasionally — ^with some stratum of the
surviving personality of the individuals who are represented as sending messages,
(p. 282).!^
And concerning the Mrs. Grove case, he wrote:
This series, for several reasons, must be regarded as the most strictly evi-
dential of all; and a decided unity of character and of message is preserved, no
matter through what medium the communication comes. But the hypothesis of
telepathy from the sitter, if stretched sufficiently, will cover all the reported por-
tions; and in such a case this notion constitutes a difficulty which can hardly be
avoided. At the same time I must say that I find this hypothesis not very prob-
able,— it does not at all satisfy my mind as an explanation. On the whole, the
surviving and communicating intelligence hypothesis commends itself to me as the
most I'kely. (p. 283) .^^
Hyslop, in his report on his study of the "phenomena" of Mrs. Pi-
per for evidences of spirit identity, said:
The evidence for personal identity in this record is so overwhelming, that
when we dismiss fraud from consideration and reckon the mistakes and confusions
in the favor of spiritism instead of difficulties and objections, we should not natur-
ally suspect telepathy as the most probable hypothesis in the case. The specter
which that doctrine raises is of the Society's own making in phenomena wholly
outside the field I am considering here, and obtains its cogency far more from our
mental habits than from the facts of this record, (p. 242).^*
Podmorc, in 1903, wrote:
Prior to the publication, in i8p8, of Dr. Hodgson's monumental report on
Mrs. Piper's later trances (Proceedings S,P.R,, vol. 13), I had held that her utter-
ances were amongst the strongest evidences which we possessed for telepathy, or at
least for some supernormal faculty of acquiring information outside the possible
radius of the senses; on the other hand, it seemed to me that the indications of
the action of discamate spirits were so slight and shadowy as to be hardly worth
taking into account. After some conversations with Dr. Hodgson during his visit
to this country in 1897, and careful study of the Report issued shortly afterwards,
I inclined to the opinion that the case of spirit intercourse was at any rate strong
enough to be accepted as a provisional hypothesis. . . . The effect of . . .
1^ Lodge, Sir Oliver : Report on some trance communications received through
Mrs. Piper. Proceedings S. P. R., 23 : 127-285.
i« Hyslop, James H.: A further record of observations of certain trance
phenomena. Proceedings S.P.R., 1901, 16:4-648.
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THE PRESENT IMPORTANCE OF THE PROBLEM 9
[Professor Hyslop's] report on my mind has been not merely to discredit altogether
the spirit hypothesis so far as this particular series of stances is concerned, but
restrospcctively to cast some shadow of doubt on the results previously recorded
by Dr. Hodgson, (p. 375). *•
In 1908:
On the one hand, it seems clear that the trance consciousness of Mrs. Piper,
as of all other so-called mediums, is apt on very small provocation to personify
itself, and that the personification may be shaped by the suggestions of those pres-
ent. In Mrs. Piper's case we have ground for assuming that such suggestions may
often be conveyed telepathically ; in short, that the dramatic personalities of the
so-called controls may actually be built up out of the material unconsciously sup-
plied by the sitters, and that the intimate personal details revealed in the trance
utterances may be telepathically filched from the same source. The limitations of
the knowledge displayed, and the occasional disingenuousness, forbid us to accept
these conmiunications as authentic and unembarrassed messages from the dead,
(p. 329).*^
And in 1910, concerning the phenomena of the same psychic he wrote :
The change in the character of the recent sittings and the remarkable and
life-like development of some of the trance personalities is, no doubt, consistent
with the hypothesis of spirit control. But it would not be safe to build much upon
such an argument. . . . The only test that we can apply to these earlier sittings
lies in the substance of the communications themselves. The great bulk of the in-
formation given was, of course, within the knowledge of the sitter, and, apart from
its dramatic form, there is no ground for assuming any other source than telepathy
from his mind. (p. 305)."
Floumoy wrote:
We might say that telepathy between the living— particularly between the
medium and members of a spiritistic group — is one of these laws, although still
vague as to its necessary conditions. The only point which appears to me worthy
of being raised, because it is so often observed, is that the ideas of the sitters which
have the greatest chance of being transmitted to the medium are those in a sort of
nascent or evanescent condition, upon the threshold between consciousness and
subconsciousness, and passing from one to the other, (pp. 211-212).
Many people going to consult a medium are astonished that the medium tells
them nothing that they are thinking about, but reveals to them details of which
they did not dream. . . . The psychic processes about to blossom or to fade
away in the penumbra of consciousness have more power of radiating to other
*• Podmore, Frank : On Professor Hyslop's Report on his sittings with Mrs.
Piper. Proceeedings S.P.R., 1903, 17:374-388.
*o Podmore: The Naturalization of the Supernatural. New York, 1908.
^ Podmore : The Newer Spiritualism. London, 1910.
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10 THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE
brains than those which are partly immovable— either in the foreground of atten-
tion or in the lowest stratum of the subconsciousness, (p. 21a). <<
This principle of direct communication between minds is curiously
extended to unsuspected lengths, so firmly has it taken hold of the pub-
lic mind: Maeterlinck*' attributed the success of the Elberfeld horses
in their performances alleged to express a high degree of intelligence,
to subliminal telepathic transference of the answers to problems from
the human to the equine mind. F. C. S. Schiller remarking this, says :
To test the telepathic hypothesis he tried a number of experiments, of which
the answers were not known to him or any one present, and found that the horses
answered as correctly as when the answers were knownl . . . [He] betakes
himself to the suggestion that some animals, e. g., horses, dogs, and cats (but not
elephants and monkeys), are natural "psychics," and so can tap subliminally what
Professor James called a great "cosmic reservoir," in which all knowledge is con-
served. ... It will be interesting, however, to see whether experimental ccm-
firmation of this mystical h3rpothesis can be obtained, and also whether any of the
many philosophers who profess to hold it on theoretic grounds will take any steps
to verify it practically.**
Second, The reproduction of the experience of some third living
son (telepathie a trois).
Andrew Lang, in 1900, wrote:
I see no reason for the hypothesis that Mrs. Piper ever receives telepathic
communications from the dead. Has she ever communicated a single thing that
was known to a dead person, but to no living man or woman? Such are my
doubts, (p. 52)."
And Frank Podmore, in 1910:
The analysis of these cases where information unknown to the sitter was
given by the trance intelligence scarcely adds strength to the hypothesis of spirit
communication. In every case the information given was, or may have been,
within the knowledge of some living mind. In many cases all the circumstances
point to some form of telepathy between the distant agent and the trance intelli-
gence, mediated, as it would seem in all cases, by the presence of a common ac-
quaintance in the person of the sitter, (p. 311).
The trance personalities, then, have never told us anything which was not
"Floumoy, Theodore: Spiritism and Psychology, (tr. Carrington). Lon-
don, 191 1.
*» Neue Rundschau, June 1914.
*^ Journal S.P.R., July 1914, 16:271-2.
** Lang, Andrew : Discussion of the trance phenomena of Mrs. Piper. III.—
Reflections on Mrs. Piper and telepathy. Proceedings S.P.R., 1900-01, 15:59-52.
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THE PRESENT IMPORTANCE OF T^E PROBLEM 11
possibly, scarcely anything which was not probably, within the knowledge of some
living person, (p. 312) .*•
Third, The reproduction of the same or similar ideas through two
or more independent automatists, purporting to be communications from
the same discamate personality, (cross-correspondences, simple).
Miss Alice Johnson observes :
If we simply find the same idea expressed— even in different forms— by both
[independent automatists] ... it may . . . most easily be explained by telepathy
between them. (p. 37S)-*^
And Professor A. C. Pigou suggests** that telepathic capacity of
the order illustrated by the experiments of the Misses Miles and Rams-
den *• (telepathy at a distance) is adequate to explain the single corre-
spondences in the communications of independent psychics.
Fourth, The reproduction through two or more independent autom-
atists of ideas the relation of which is known only to the communicat-
ing intelligence, presumably a discarnate personality, and can be found
by the researchers only after painstaking study and search (cross-cor-
respondences, complementary).
Miss Johnson describes this phenomenon:
What we get is a fragmentary utterance in one script, which seems to have
no particular point or meaning, and another fragmentary utterance in the other,
of an equally pointless character: but when we put the two together, we see that
they supplement one another, and that there is apps^rently one coherent idea under-
lying both, but only partially expressed in each. . . . It is . . . difficult to suppose
that the telepathic perception of one fragment could lead to the production of
another fragment which can only, after careful comparison, be seen to be related
to the first, (p. 37S).
[The corresponding statements relate] to events in the present which, to all
intents and purposes, are unknown to any living person, since the meaning and
point of her script is often uncomprehended by each automatist until the solution
is found through putting the two scripts together, (p. 377).
It was not the automatists that detected [this new experimental procedure]
. . . but a student of the scripts; it has every appearance of being an element
imported from outside; it suggests an independent invention, an active intelli-
gence constantly at work in the present, not a mere echo or remnant of individ-
ualities of the past (p. 377),
**Podmore, Frank: The Newer Spiritualism. London, 1910.
*^ Johnson, Alice: On the automatic writing of Mrs. Holland. Proceedings
S,P.R., 1909, 21:166-391.
» Proceedings S. P. R., 23 : 292-3. «• Proceedings S. P. R., 21 :6o-93.
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12 THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE
Perhaps the most serious practical objection to the hypothesis that the con-
trols invented this special plan of cross-correspondences would be that it might
have been a subliminal invention of Mrs. Verrall's, since it is on her script that
the hypothesis is chiefly based, and it is there that we find the most complete ex-
position of it. There are, however, a few indications of it in Mrs. Holland's
script also, quite independently of Mrs. Verrall's. (p. 389) .»»
Professor Pigou comments:
All the characteristics of the best cross-correspondences seem to me to be
produced in this experiment. Since, therefore, there are strong grounds for be-
lieving that the agent here was the subliminal consciousness of Mr. and Mrs.
Verrall, or of both together, there arc also strong grounds for believing that the
manufacture of cross-correspondences of the required type falls within the com-
pass of incarnate mind. In view of this fact I conclude that the occurrence of
these correspondences in other cases does not make probable the operation of any
discamate mind. (p. 302) .^^
Miss Johnson again says:
Are we to suppose, then, that the unconscious and involuntary telepathic ef-
forts of Mrs. Verrall and of Mr. Piddington, acting unconsciously, involuntarily,
and telepathically in combination with each other, produced the whole cross-cor-
respondence? (p. 255).
. . . There are. indeed, two or three items which some of the automatists
may be supposed to have borrowed telepathically from one another. . . . But look-
ing at the scripts as a whole, we find an extraordinary variety in the methods
chosen to approach the same idea. ... (p. 256). It appears to me, in short,
that many of the items of this cross-correspondence afford strong evidence of the
design or agency of some intelligence which was cognisant of the whole scheme,
as finally revealed . . . and it seems to me difficult to attribute so complete a
knowledge of it to the subliminal consciousness either of Mrs. Verrall or Mr.
Piddington. (p. 261)."
And after still further study, Miss Johnson observes:
I would next point out that, while the cross-correspondences between the
scripts of different writers seemed at first to consist merely of verbal similarities
or coincidences of topic, further study showed that they were far more compli-
cated and elaborate than we had supposed, involving many more scripts and often
several different subjects; sometimes including items of literary or historical in-
terest unknown to the writers whose script furnished the cross-correspondence
•<> Johnson, Alice: On the automatic writing of Mrs. Holland. Proceedings
S, P. R,, 1909, 21 : 166-391.
»* Pigou, Professor A. C: Psychical research and survival after bodily
death. Proceedings S, P. R,, 1909, 23 : 286-303.
"Johnson, Alice: Second report on Mrs. Hc^land's script. Proceedings
S. P. R., 1910, 34 : 201-263.
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THE PRESENT IMPORTANCE OF THE PROBLEM 13
and characteristic in many ways of the supposed "author/' and in general more
and more difficult to explain on the hypothesis of the unaided subliminal powers
of the writers, (p. I5S).»«
Podmore writes:
No person who carefully studies the records would think it possible to at-
tribute all these numerous and well-attested coincidences to fraudulent design or
the mere chance association of ideas. If we reject, for the present, at any rate,
the explanation suggested by many of the utterances themselves, that of commu-
nication from the dead, we must seek for some other cause adequate to the ef-
fects. There remains only the agency which has been provisionally named telep-
athy. . . . The establishment of such a faculty, if only as the vestige of a prim-
itive mode of sensibility, now superseded by articulate speech, would surely be a
result worth all the labor spent [in this field], (p. 316).
But whatever the explanation of this particular series of coincidences [Ver-
rall-Frith-Holland-Piper "The Sevens Incident"] I see no evidence whatever to
justify the assumption, even provisionally, of a directing intelligence other than
those of the automatists concerned. It would appear, on the contrary, that this
case has important bearings upon the interpretation of the evidence as a whole.
Not only does it vindicate, in the least equivocal fashion, the action of telepathy
from the living, but it further invalidates by anticipation all the evidence for the
agency of the dead which might have been derived from "posthumous" letters,
and has thus deprived us of what would have seemed an important, though not,
of course, a crucial, test. (p. 276).
In fact, the investigators themselves now recognize that the primitive theory
of possession, the theory advocated in a modified form by Dr. Hodgson and still
held by most Spiritualists, can no longer be defended. They have substituted for
it a theory of telepathic interaction between the mind of the automatist and other
minds, of the living or of the dead. (p. 298).**
This Dominating Role of Telepathy Challenged.
But this dominating role of the hypothesis of telepathy in the ex-
planation of trance utterances has not been tmcontested, and that from
quite diverse quarters:
First, TeUpathie d trois, it is claimed, has not been proved. Lodge,
in 1902, said:
Returning to the subject of trance-lucidity generally, I wish to emphasize
my conviction that an explanation based on telepathy as a vera causa can
be pressed too far. Telepathy is the one ultra-normal human faculty to the real-
ity of which most of those who have engaged in these researches are prepared to
assent: that is, to assent to it as a bare fact, a summary of certain observed phe-
*« Johnson, Miss Alice : A reconstruction of some "Concordant Automatisms."
Proceedings S.P,R., 1914, 27:1-156.
"Podmore, Frank: The Newer Spiritualism. London, 1910.
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14 THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE
nomena; but its laws are unknown and its scope and meaning are not yet appar-
ent, (p. 39). Until we can answer these questions ... it is scarcely possible to
regard telepathy, even from the sitter, as a legitimate explanation of much of the
clairvoyance or lucidity noticed in trance utterances. It may have to be assumed
as the least strained explanation, but it cannot with certainty be definitely asserted
to be the correct one, even when it would easily cover the facts; still less is it
permissible, except as the vaguest and most groping hypothesis, to press it when-
ever convenient beyond the limits of experiment into an extrapolated region, and
to suppose that the minds of entirely disconnected and unconscious strangers at a
distance are actually read: when it has never been experimentally shown that
they can be read at all. (p. 39).**
Second, Telepathy, as supported by "spontaneous cases" (as, appari-
tions of the living or the djring), is not proved.
Podmore wrote, in 1894:
The kind of evidence now to be considered the coincidence of some spon-
taneous affection of the percipient with some event in the life-history of the per-
son presumed to be the agent, as when one sees the apparition of a friend at the
time of his death — is of inferior cogency in two ways [to the evidence from ex-
perimental cases] : the coincidences are neither so numerous nor so exact ; and
the risk of error in the record is far greater, (p. I43).**
And in 1910:
It is hardly necessary to say that these faculties (telepathy, clairvoyance,
precognition, and the like) have not yet been admitted to the rights of citizenship
in the republic of science, though one of them (telepathy) has filed a petition for
naturalization. Let us examine first the claims of this aspirant, telepathy. . . .
Now, the main evidence for the operation of this presumed faculty of telepathy
consists of experiments in which the two parties to the transfer, the agent and
the percipient, were in the same room, or, at any rate, within a few yards of each
other. Many series of successful experiments in the transference of ideas and
sensations have been conducted under these conditions. . . . But it was found
that a slight increase in the distance exercised a marked effect on the result . . .
There have been a few isolated instances, and a few short series of experiments,
in which it is claimed that definite ideas of numbers, objects, or pictures have
been telepathically transferred between agent and percipient when separated by
distances varying from hundreds of yards to hundreds of miles. But when we
remember the habitual inaccuracy of untrained investigators, and the various
sources of error in experiments of this kind, together with the practical certainty
that the successes reported, even if recorded with perfect accuracy, bear but an
infinitesimal proportion to the unrecorded failures, it is impossible to assign much
"Lodge, Sir Oliver: President's address. Proceedings S.P.R,, 1902, 17:
37-57.
••Podmore: Apparitions and Thought-Transference, an examination of the
evidence for Telepathy. London, 1894.
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THE PRESENT IMPORTANCE OF THE PROBLEM 15
wdght to these sporadic instances of "thought transference at a distance."
(pp. 21-23) w
We can hardly be justified in making the spontaneous phenomena [appari-
tions at the time of death] the basis of a theory of telepathy, (p. 26). ... Con-
sidered by themselves, they hardly carry weight enough to count; it is only
because of their presumed kinship with the manifestations of experimental
telepathy that they have any claim to be heard at alL (p. 26).*^
Carrington, 1908:
Without experimental evidence, we should certainly be unwarranted in
inventing that theory [telepathy] to explain the spontaneous cases, (p. 198).**
Tuckett, 191 1 :
The evidence for telepathy is at first sight most striking and abundant, so
that a belief in its reality is now almost universal, at any rate outside strictly
scientific circles, (p. 107). . . . Scientifically all one can say is that the evidence
for telepathy is wonderfully suggestive, (p. 109).'*
And James, 1909:
The peculiarity of the case is just that there are so many sources of possible
deception in most of the observations that the whole lot of them may be worth-
less, (p. 175). *<>
Third, Telepathy as supported by direct experiment is not proved.
Hyslop, in his introduction to one of Carrington's books, published
in 1908, says:
Mr. Carrington brings out clearly that it [telepathy] is not to be regarded
as an explanation of anything, and is only a name for facts requiring such an
explanation. This is of all things one of the most important qualifications with
which the term is to be used. Moreover, it is well to keep in mind that, even
as an alleged fact of the supernormal kind, it is not a generally accepted phe-
nomenon in the scientific world. Only a few men seriously believe in it, and
others are willing to speak and think of it tolerantly in order to escape a pro-
founder alternative, (pp. 11-12).**
James, in 1896, wrote:
No mere reader [of the experimental results] can be blamed, however, if
*^Podmore, Frank: The Newer Spiritualism. London, 191a
** Carrington, Hereward : The Coming Science. Boston, 1908.
** Tuckett, Ivor li.: The Evidence for the Supernatural, a critical study
made with "uncommon sense." London, 191 1.
^ James: Memories and Studies. New York, 191 1.
^Carrington, Hereward: The Coming Science. Boston, 1908.
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16 THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE
he demand, for so revolutionary a belief, a diore overwhelming bulk of testi-
mony than has yet been supplied, (p. 309).**
Jastrow, in 1900:
That there is something in these results to be explained is admitted : whether
the results have been obtained and recorded in such a way as to contain the clue
to their explanation cannot be affirmed; whether our present state of knowledge
enables us to explain them may be argued pro and con; whether they are worth
serious attention is also a debatable question; but none of these conditions war-
rants a resort to the telepathic hypothesis, (pp. 98-9) .*«
What is the logical conclusion to be drawn from the data oflferable in evi-
dence of some supersensory form of thought-transference ... ? . . . I can say no
more in dismissing the topic than that to me the phenomena represent a complex
conglomerate, in which imperfectly recognized modes of sense-action, hyper-
aesthesia and hysteria, fraud, conscious and unconscious, chance, collusion, simi-
larity of mental processes, an expectant interest in presentiments and a belief
in their significance, nervousness and ill health, illusions of memory, hallucina-
tions, suggestion, contagion, and other elements enter into the composition;
while defective observation, falsification of memory, forgetfulness of details, bias
and prepossession, suggestion from others, lack of training and of a proper inves-
tigative temperament, further invalidate and confuse the records of what is sup-
posed to have been observed. Many of the reported facts are not facts at all;
others are too distortedly and too deficiently reported to be either intelligible or
suggestive; some are accurately observed and properly recorded, and these some-
times contain a probable suggestion of their natural explanation, sometimes must
be put down as chance, and more often must be left unexplained. To call this
absence of an explanation telepathy is surely no advance; to pose this hypothetic
process as the modus operandi of any result that can be even remotely and con-
tingently otherwise accounted for seems superfluous; to actually use this
h}rpothesis to accotmt for still more obscure and more indefinite and less clearly
established phenomena is a most egregious logical sin. (pp. 103-4) .*»
And N. W. Thomas, in 1905 :
The statistical method ... has been applied to experimental thought-trans-
ference data, but it has hardly been recognized that the few complete series which
have been published are insufficient even to demonstrate the mere fact of telepa-
thy ... It would be well for the Society for Psychic Research to recognize this
and organize further experiments on a large scale before assuming, as its mem-
bers commonly do in discussions on trance mediumship, that telepathy is a vera
causa, and not only needs no further demonstration, but may be invoked on any
and every occasion, regardless of the fact that, in so doing, a role is frequently
assigned to it which may well stagger the imagination, though no evidence, scien-
tific or otherwise, has ever been presented for the telepathic power in the extreme
« James: The Will to Believe. New York, 1899.
** Jastrow, Jos.: Fact and Fable in Psychology. Boston, 190a
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THE PRESENT IMPORTANCE OF THE PROBLEM 17
fonn in which it is invoked, to explain away experiments more readily explained
on a spiritistic hypothesis, (pp. 177-8).**
The Present Status of Telepathy,
The hypothesis of telepathy, then, is a serious competitor with the
spiritistic hypothesis in the explanation of trance and other automatic
utterances, and is seriously employed by the foremost psychical re-
searchers. This important role, however, is challenged by equally prom-
inent researchers and students of psychical phenomena, challenged in
every phase of its alleged operation from its more complex to its sim-
plest forms.
It might be well, therefore, to inquire what status the telepathic
hypothesis occupies in the minds of the foremost psychical researchers
and of such psychologists as give it attention. Let it be recalled that
one of the principal aims of the Society for Psychical Research at the
time of its founding, in 1882, was the investigation of thought-transfer-
ence, and that within ten years the Society presented the great bulk of
its evidence in its voluminous Proceedings. Some of the leading re-
searchers who had charge of the investigation had already been con-
vinced by experimental evidence, of the fact of telepathy, before this
organized effort to produce scientific proof was begun; and others be-
came convinced in the course of investigation.
It will be in the interest of economy if in our canvass of opinion
we select more recent statements, and display more freely the more
critical but not the extreme opinions.**
** Thomas, Northcote W.: Thought Transference. London, 1905.
*'The reader is referred for systematic reviews of the evidence to the
following works:
Sir Oliver Lodge: The Survival of Man. New York: MoflFat, 1909.
Professor W. F. Barrett: Psychical Research. London, 191 1.
Frank Podmore: Apparitions and Thought-Transference. London: Scott,
1894. The Naturalization of the Supernatural. New York: Putnams, 1908.
Telepathic Hallucinations. Halifax: Milner, n. d.
N. W. Thomas: Thought Transference. London, 1905.
Ivor LI. Tuckett: The Evidence for the Supernatural. London: Paul, 191 1.
James H. Hyslop: Psychical Research and the Resurrection. Boston:
Small, 1908.
G. Stanley Hall: Am. Jr. Psychology, 1888, i:i28ff.; 1895, 7:i35ff.
For recent controversy, see articles by Tuckett, Lodge, Hill, Lankester, "A
Business Man," Armstrong, and 'The Hermit of Prague," in Bedrock, A Quar-
terly Review of Scientific Thought. London, vols, i and 2 (1912-14).
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18 THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE
For Baldwin's Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology, Mrs.
Sidgwick, in 1902, wrote:
The existence of telepathy is not yet generally admitted by the scientific
world, but it has been one of the main functions of the Society for Psychical
Research to obtain and investigate evidence on the subject, (p. 668).^
Podmore, in 1894:
The possibility of the transference of ideas and sensations must be held to
be proved by the experiments recorded. That proof can be impugned only on
the ground that the precautions taken against communication between agent and
percipient by normal means were insufficient, (p. 143).*^
In 1902:
For my own part, I see no reason to doubt that if the existence of thought-
transference should eventually be demonstrated— and I do not claim that the
demonstration is or ought to be considered complete— the explanation will be
found strictly within the region of natural law. ... It must be admitted that the
older evidence is far more demonstrative. Possibly, apart from two recent items
— ^the experiments at Brighton conducted by Professor and Mrs. Sidgwick and
the records of Mrs. Piper's trance-utterances — the question of the reality of such
a faculty would hardly seem worth discussion. (Int, p. xvii).*^
And in 1910:
The evidence for thought-transference at close quarters is experimental;
and the experiments have been conducted by such competent investigators as
Mrs. Sidgwick, Edmund Gumey, Professor W. F. Barrett, Sir Oliver Lodge,
Pierre Janet, Charles Richet, and others of like caliber. Yet, even so, it is still
a claimant for scientific recognition, (p. 25).**
Constable, in 191 1:
I agree with Podmore that experimental cases constitute the strongest evi-
dence we have towards proof of the fact of telepathy, and that a full considera-
tion of the cases leads, practically, to proof of the fact. But I think such cases
are more open to suspicion of good faith than spontaneous cases. . . . The very
strength, the completeness of the evidence, may point to fraud, (p. 22i).«o
Tuckett, in 191 1 :
As regards experimental cases of telepathy, I have never yet seen any evi-
dence such as will satisfy a scientific standard of truth, though some of the
*« Sidgwick, Mrs, Henry: Psychical Research. Baldwin's Diet, of PhiL and
Psychol., 1902.
^^ Podmore : Apparitions and Thought-Transference, an examination of the
evidence for Telepathy. London, 1894.
^> Podmore : Modem Spiritualism, a history and a criticism. New
York, 1902.
*• Podmore: The Newer Spiritualism. London, 1910.
»<> Constable, F. C: Personality and Telepathy. Londcxi, 191 1.
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THE PRESENT IMPORTANCE OF THE PROBLEM 19
resolts are distinctly striking. Yet in experiments carried out for this purpose
such a proof should be possible, (p. 127)*^
N. W. Thomas, in 1905, concerning his own experiments, said:
The results of the card experiments ... are hardly sufficiently decisive for
it to be possible to base any conclusion on them. (p. 175). *>
And concerning the status of the telepathic hypothesis :
If I venture to express my own convicticMi on the subject, it is that much
more effort, and, in particular, much more systematic effort, is needed before we
can safely assert that telepathy is a proved »» fact. (p. 176). When we have
arrived at that point our task is only begun. No inquiry can lay claim to be
scientific which expresses its results in general terms when it can give them in
precise terms. . . . Psychical Research must ... be made a question of statistics
if further conclusions are to be based on the results, (pp. 176-7).
Perhaps it may never be possible to formulate a telepathic law in terms like
those of the law of gravitation, or to devise such experimental conditions as will
enable the student of trance mediums to say with confidence that his results can-
not be explained by telepathy. But, until the effort has been made, no investiga-
tion into trance mediumship has the data which can alone enable it to formulate
reliable conclusions, (pp. 179-80) .»*
Bramwell, who was a member of a committee of the Society for
Psychical Research devoted mainly to telepathic experiments, in 1906,
wrote :
During the last twenty years I have searched for evidence of telepathy, and
also taken part in the experiments of other observers ; the results, however, have
invariably been negative, (p. 136).
[Referring to the experiments made by eminent men:] Altho their experi-
ments were carefully conducted, it is doubtful whether all possible sources of
error were excluded; and I am unable to accept them as conclusive, (p. 143).
After many years* hypnotic work, and frequent opportunities of investigat-
ing the experiments of others, I have seen nothing, absolutely nothing, which
might be fairly considered as affording even the slightest evidence for the
existence of telepathy, or any of the so-called "occult" phenomena, (p. 142).
Despite all this it would be unphilosophic to deny the possibility of telepathy,
(p. I43).»»
Moll, who witnessed some of the experiments conducted by Mrs.
•iTuckett, Ivor LI.: The Evidence for the Supernatural, a critical study
made with ''uncommon sense." London, 191 1.
"Thomas, Northcote W.: Thought Transference. London, 1905.
»• Proved, the author means, by direct experiment.
»* Thomas, Northcote W.: Thought Transference. London, 1905.
"Bramwell, J. Milne: Hypnotism, its history, practice and theory.
London, 1906.
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20 THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE
Sidgwick at Brighton, a series already mentioned as noteworthy, in 1909,
said:
The experiments were not conclusive. Also the experiments made by the
other persons I have mentioned do not stand serious criticism. My own experi-
ments, especially those I made some years ago in conjunction with Max Dessoir,
only gave negative results when the necessary precautions were taken. Still, I
agree with Loewenfeld that we cannot deny the possibility of there being such a
thing as telepathy, or at least the possibility of there being ways of influencing
others about which we know nothing in the present day. But up to the present
[1909, 4th ed.] no proof of this has been forthcoming, (p. 515).
As I have already mentioned, we need not attach much importance to the fact
that a few savants uphold the reality of occultistic phenomena. I myself formerly
attached a certain amount of importance to this fact. But since I have observed
the utter helplessness of savants directly they enter on methods of investigation
with which they are not thoroughly acquainted, I have become ccxivinced that
mediums easily lead great savants by the nose. (p. 551).
When I come to look through the vast literature of occultism, I find that I
am totally unable to discover even one single series of experiments that carries
with it a convincing proof of the reality of occultistic phenomena; nothing but
casual observations of unchecked experiments. There was a time when some of
the telepathic experiments carried out in England— more especially those made by
Guthrie and Birchall— appeared to me, relatively speaking, free from error. Never-
theless, when I take into consideration the way in which the reports are drawn up,
I am compelled to admit that those experiments are not convincing, (p. 552).**
Simon Newcomb, the American astronomer, and the first President
of the American Society for Psychical Research (founded in 1884), in
a statement of his impressions after an experience of fifty years with
psychical phenomena, said:
Nothing has been brought out by the researches of the [English] Psychical
Society and its able collaborators except what we should expect to find in the ordi-
nary course of nature, (p. 139) V
Among the psychologists, Floumoy •** of Geneva and M'Dougall ••
of England, accept the hypothesis. James, already quoted, holds it as
a possible alternative to his suggested theory of a "cosmic conscious-
ness" in the explanation of Mrs. Piper's trance phenomena.
Jastrow, a member of the council in the old American Society for
■« Moll, Albert : Hypnotism, including a study of the chief points of psycho-
therapeutics and occultism. London, 1909.
•7 Newcomb, Simon: Modem occultism. Nineteenth Century and After,
January 1909, 65 : 126-139.
»• Floumoy : Spiritism and Psychology, pp. 209 ff.
••M'Dougall, William: Body and Mind, London, 1913. p. 349-
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THE PRESENT IMPORTANCE OF THE PROBLEM 21
Psychical Research, and now for many years in charge of the Depart-
ment of Psychology at the University of Wisconsin, also quoted above,
in 1900, said:
I regard the acceptance of telepathy as an established phenomenon, as abso-
lutely unwarranted and most unfortunate, (p. 457) .•*
G. Stanley Hall, one of the leading spirits in the founding of the
old American Society for Psychical Research (1884), ^uid for some
time a vice-president and a member of the council, founder of the first
laboratory in America for experimental psychology, at Johns Hopkins
University, and now for many years the president of Clark University,
was most sympathetic with the aims and purposes of the English S. P.
R. at the time of its foimding and has followed its work with keen at-
tention. He said, in 1887:
We have spent much time and labor in repeating with many subjects nearly
all the experiments of the English Society, only to find in very many cases an un-
accountable proportion of error.«i
In 1895:
The writer has diligently read the experiments of the Proceedings, and can
honestly say that there is not one in which the conditions as reported seem to him
satisfactory. . . . Give us one little fact, ever so little, that we can freely test
and reproduce once a year in our laboratory. We will cross seas to see it, will
acknowledge our mistaken skepticism, and confess telepathy, and turn the research
of one laboratory at least in a new direction.**
And in 1910:
Even telepathy seems to me a striking case of the subjection of the intellect
by the will-to-believe. . . . Here I have for years had a standard series of tests
often tried on believers in telepathy and clairvoyance, but never with a glinuner of
success. Only when conditions can be so controlled that, e, g., a teacher can an-
nounce beforehand that, on such a day, hour, and place he will demonstrate these
things, can or will they be accepted by any sound scientific mind. (xxxi-xxxii).*»
Pfungst, the clever investigator who published the remarkable re-
port of experiments made with Clever Hans, the celebrated "educated"
horse, in 191 1, said:
•ojastrow: The modem occult Popular Science Monthly, 1900, voL 57,
foot-note.
•1 Am. Jr, Psychology, 1887, i : 143.
•*Ibid., 1895-96.7:139.
••Tanner, Amy R: Studies m Spiritism. Introduction by G. Stanley Hall.
New York, 1910.
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22 THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE
It may be that these truly microscopic movements also play some part in
bringing about the success of some of the experiments in telepathy, so-called,
(transference of thought from one person to another, ostensibly without any medi-
ation of the senses known to us). In spite of the huge mass of ''experimental
evidence" which has been collected, chiefly in England and in America, it appears
to me that telepathy is nothing but an unproven hypothesis based upon experimental
errors, (p. 108, note).**
Professor James R. Angell, head of the Department of Psychology
at the University of Chicago, in 1912, said :
However, telepathy is not to be laughed out of court merely by ridicule.
There is a very respectable body of evidence tending to show that, occasionally at
least, such transfer of knowledge has occurred. [How it comes about is not known ;
moreover,] the rank and file of scientific psychologists probably disbelieve vigor-
ously in the reality of anything except occasional coincidences, such as are met
with in all aspects of nature, (p. 147) •^*
And Professor Titchener, head of the Department of Psychology at
Cornell University, in 1898, said:
No scientifically-minded psychologist believes in telepathy. ^
Tuckett, recognized by the leaders in psychical research as a hostile
critic, recently (in 191 3) summed up the situation as follows:
All the evidence for "spirit-control," "telepathy," and "psychic force," has
been obtained under conditions precluding the possibility of being certain that it is
not vitiated by fallacies due to fraud, self-deception, or incompleteness of data.^^
This position is consistent with that maintained by the author in his
book,*® published two years earlier, of which Jastrow in an appreciative
review said :
It shows so clearly the necessity of trained judgment, and the saturation of
the inquiring mind with a saving grace of logical rectitude, sustained in turn by
psychological insight, for a safe conduct through the tangled thicket from which
so many a traveler returns with strange tales and stranger beliefs, (p. 461).®*
•* Pfungst, Oscar: Qever Hans, the Horse of Mr. von Osten; a contribution
to experimental, animal and human psychology. New York, 191 1.
•» Angell, James Roland: Chapters from Modem Psychology. New York,
1912.
•• Titchener : The feeling of being stared at Science, 1898, 8 : 896.
•» Tuckett: Psychical Research: The illogical position of some psychical
researchers ; A rejoinder to Sir Oliver Lodge and Mr. HilL Bedrock, 1913, i : 470.
••Tuckett: The Evidence for the Supernatural: a critical study made with
''uncommon sense." London, 191 1.
••Jastrow: The Dial, 1912, 52:461-3.
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FUITHER EXPERIMENTAL WORK IMPERATIVE 23
Further Experimental Work Imperative.
That the criticisms leveled at the evidence upon which the leaders
of psychical research have erected the telepathic hypothesis, now ex-
ploited everywhere in the explanation of psychical phenomena, have not
been without eflfect upon the leaders themselves, is indicated by a per-
haps unanimous agreement that the old successftd experimental results
need further verification, under such conditions of experiment as will
both eliminate sources of error prejudicial to the establishing of the fact
of telepathy, and reveal somewhat the nature of the process, e, g.,
whether it follows the laws of radiant energy, or whether it is "non-
material." Proof acceptable to science is desired.
Thus, Lodge is still engaged in experiments on telepathy, and the
Society officially issued a recent call (February 191 5) to its members
and associates for assistance:
To Members and Associates of the Society for Psychical Research :
The Society for Psychical Research is anxious to try experiments of various
lands, hypnotic and other, with a view to obtaining further evidence either of tel-
epathy or of hyperaesthesia. ... In all experimental work quantity, as well as
quality, is important, and we hope, therefore, that not only will a considerable
number of subjects present themselves, but that they will be willing to continue
the experiments regularly, say, once a week, for at least two or three months,
should it appear that interesting results are likely to be obtained.^^
Something concerning the conditions of experimentation, and the na-
ture of the results of recent experiments, is intimated in the same issue
of the Journal:
In most of the experiments in telepathy that are carried on at the Rooms, it
is arranged for the agent to be in one room and the percipient in another.
Though telepathic phenomena seem to occur fairly often, it is well known
that they can only be experimentally demonstrated in rare cases, so that much of
the time spent in such experiments is inevitably fruitless, producing merely nega-
tive results. Among a number of sets of experiments, however, tried during the
last two years, a considerable proportion of successful results were obtained with
two experimenters, (pp. 22-3).
This return of the Society, the publications of which contain the
principal evidence for telepathy, to the problem, may be accepted as pro-
fessional and official recognition of urgent need for further work in this
field by psychical research. And, when it is recalled that Professor
Richet insisted that his favorable results in experimental thought-trans-
^0 Journal S.P.R., Feb. 1915, 17:32.
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24 THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE
ference needed verification;^^ and that the old American Society for
Psychical Research (1884-1889) which set itself this task discontinued
its eflfort, after accumulating an imposing array of negative evidence,
with an appeal by the Council for further cooperation, this trend in psy-
chical research appears inevitable.
It is true that from the beginning certain leaders urged repeated
experimental investigation of telepathy. Myers, in 1884, said:
It is an obvious fact, but it is nevertheless a fact which we must repeat as
often as possible, that in no way can psychical research be better aided than by
constant and varied experiments on thought-transference in every form. (p. 2i7)J>
Gume/s statement, made in the same year, has just been quoted in
a foot-note.
In the discussion which followed F. W. H. Myers's report on the
more recent English experiments on thought-transference, before the
International Congress of Experimental Psychology at Paris, (August
ID, 1890), Professor Richet said that he knew well of those experiments
and had himself carried out a great number of a similar kind, reaching
similar results; and (as reported by Dr. A. T. Myers) that
Such experiments should be repeated widely and with the greatest care, for
if the proof of thought-transference to which they led could be established, with-
out doubt it would be one of the greatest discoveries of our time. (p. 182) .^'
And Professor Sidgwick "entirely agreed in the view [expressed by
Professor Richet] that more experiments were urgently required." ^"^
Balfour Stewart, in his Presidential Address before the Society, in
1885, said:
^^Gumey, in his review of Richefs work (Proceedings S.P,R,, 2:242)
pointed out that Richet was in error in interpreting his result as the degree of
probability of the existence of a "Suggestion Mentale," instead of the "most prob-
able measure*' of the influence of the faculty ♦/ it exists ; and that a repetition of
Richet's experiments would yield "a valuable contribution." And on another page
he said:
"He [Richet] insists that the experiments must be repeated; and the im-
portance of this cannot be too strongly urged." (p. 257).
^* Myers, F. W. H.: On a telepathic explanation of some so-called spiritual-
istic phenomena. Proceedings S.P.R., 1884, 2:217-237.
^»A. T. Myers: International Congress of Experimental Psychology. Pro-
ceedings S.P.R., 1890, 6:171-182; Cf., Congr^s International de Psychologic
Physiologique, Premiere Session, Paris, 1890, Comte Rendu, p. 153.
^9a Proceedings S.P,R„ 1889, 6:182.
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FURTHER EXPERIMENTAL WORK IMPERATIVE 25
To my mind the evidence already adduced is such as to render highly prob-
able the occasional presence amongst us of something which we call thought-
transference or more generally telepathy; but it is surely our duty as a Society
to continue to accumulate evidence until the existence of such a power cannot be
controverted, (p. 66).^*
That the large amount of evidence that was accumulated during the
half-dozen years following these appeals has not proven conclusive has
already been shown in the opinions quoted above. And during the more
recent years equally urgent appeals for further investigation have been
made.
Podmore, in 1894, wrote:
The first stage of our inquiry is not yet complete. It would be futile for us
to debate what manner of new agency we propose to believe in until it is generally
admitted by competent persons that the facts are not to be attributed to such rec-
ognized, if insufficiently familiar, causes as illusion, misrepresentation, and the
subconscious quickening of normal faculties. More and varied experiments are
wanted, (p. 394).^*
James, in his presidential address to the English Society, in 1896,
said:
We have published records of experiments on at least thirty subjects, roughly
speaking, and many of these were strikingly successful. But their types are het-
erogeneous; in some cases the conditions were not faultless; in others the ob-
servations were not prolonged; and, generally speaking, we must all share in a
regret that the evidence, since it has reached the point it has reached, should not
grow more voluminous still.^«
In the Journal for January 1900, under the title of "Premature
Generalizations about Telepathy," the precautions necessary to be taken
in experiments in telepathy are discussed, and the author continues :
It is true that the necessity for all these precautions was soon discovered by
some of the earliest systematic workers of our Society (as may be seen by refer-
ence to the accounts of their experiments published in the early numbers of the
Proceedings) ; but there is no doubt that the only way of advancing the subject
further is to carry out many more experiments under the same stringent condi-
tions as there described, or with any further precautions that experience might
suggest. Accounts of such experiments would be most gladly received by the
Editor, (p. 170.)"
^* Stewart, Balfour: President's address. Proceedings S.P.R., 1885, 3:^-^-
T* Podmore : Apparitions and Thought-Transference. London, 1894.
'•James: The address of the president. Proceedings S,P,R., 1896-97,12:4.
^^ Journal S,P,R., Jan. 1900, 9:169-176.
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26 THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE
Lodge, in 1909, wrote:
Why investigate that of which we are sure? Why conduct experiments in
hypnotism or in telepathy? Why seek to confirm that of which we already have
convicticMi? . . . The business of Science is not belief but investigation. Belief is
both the prelude to and the outcome of knowledge. If a fact or a theory has had
a prima facie case made out for it, subsequent investigation is necessary to exam-
ine and extend it. (p. 24).^*
And in 1913:
If, however, direct first-hand laboratory experience of the rudimentary stages
of such a faculty is wanted— as it ought to be — ^it must be looked and waited for,
and experiments must be tried from time to time, as in any other branch of sci-
ence. ... I have now an apparatus set up for examining whether traces of the
faculty exist widespread in normal people ; and I shall make report to the Society
for Psychical Research in due course.^*
Bergson, in his presidential address of 1914, presupposed continued
investigation when he said:
If telepathy is real, it is natural, and . . . whenever the day comes that we
know its conditions, it will no more be necessary to wait for a veridical hallucina-
tion in order to obtain a telepathic effect than it is necessary for us now, if we
wish to see an electric spark, to wait until the sky gives us a display during a
thunderstorm, (p. 160) .^
Thomas, in 1905, wrote:
In order to justify its existence as a body whose object it is to approach the
study of these questions scientifically, the Society for Psychical Research must
endeavor to supply these data and again take up the question of thought-transfer-
ence. That other subjects attract a greater share of popular interest is dearly no
reason for dropping the inquiry. Still less is absence of success, which appears to
have prevented the publication of the trials between i9g2 and 1901, a reason for
discontinuing them. For it is dear that the smaller the measure of success under
rigid conditions, the more probable is it that the conditions in earlier and more
successful trials were lacking in some essential particular, (pp. 179-180) .'i
Tuckett, in 191 1, while admitting "the a priori possibility of telep-
athy," maintains, in the face of results so far published, an attitude of
skepticism :
^» Lodge: The Survival of Man, a study in unrecognized human faculty.
New York, 1909.
»• Lodge: Telepathy as a fact of experience. Bedrock, 1913. 2:57 ff.
••Bergson, Henri: Presidential address (before the S. P. R.), delivered May
2S, 1913. Proceedings S.P.R., 1914, 27:157-175.
>^ Thomas, Northcote W.: Thought Transference. London, 1905.
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FURTHER EXPERIMENTAL WORK IMPERATIVE 27
This attitude, however, does not prevent my hoping that farther experiments
in telepathy will be carried out by researchers trained in experimental psychology,
for there is great need of such to throw adequate light on the question, which till
then we must "leave in a decent obscurity." (pp. 307-8) .•*
And in 1912 he charges that the savants who have accepted the results
of their investigations as proof of the fact of telepathy were satisfied
with evidence that is not capable of verification (p. 182), and that they
were inadequately equipped for such work:
They start on psychical research without the appropriate preliminary train-
ing which ought strictly to include knowledge of the methods of experimental
psychology, of conjuring tricks, and of the vagaries of human nature such as is
sometimes given by a medical career, (pp. 182 ff.).
The will to believe has made them ready to accept evidence obtained under
conditions which they would recognize to be unsound if they had been trained in
experimental psychology, (p. 204) .•«
Thus is the paramount issue in psychical research thrown by a keen
and cautious critic into the laboratory of experimental psychology, and
even a skeptical psychologist may be quoted in agreement with that as-
signment :
Scripture, in 1898, after discussing certain subtile psychological
processes, said:
For thought-transference, therefore, all that is required is to find a subject
who has an abnormally sharp ear, and, for your part, to think very intently on the
word you wish transferred. It is not necessary that there shall be any intentional
conununication ; if the investigators are sufficiently untrained in scientific psycho-
logical experimenting, and are inclined to attribute results to occult powers rather
than to their own incapacity, the proofs of thought-transference inevitably follow,
(pp. 259-260) .M
And after laying down necessary precautions in conducting an experi-
ment:
I have, I hope, said enough to make clear what an experiment is and what
it is not. Such an explanation seems necessary at a time when so many really
educated persons have put their faith in the results and deductions by the methods
of psychical research. It is a priori impossible for an untrained man to make
scientific experiments, and it is to be deeply regretted that persons of distinction
^'Tuckett, Ivor LI.: The Evidence for the Supernatural: a critical study
made with ''uncommon sense." London, 1911.
•• Tuckctt, Ivor LL : Psychical researchers and the will to believe. Bedrock,
1912, 1 : 180-204.
•* Scripture, E. W. : The New Psychology. London, 1898.
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28 THOUGHT-TRANSFER£NCE
in Other lines should undertake problems that require all the skill of a long-trained
worker in the psychological laboratory.
The objectionable feature of psychical research does not lie in its subject of
investigation. . . . The objections to psychical research lie in its unscientific meth-
ods of experimentation and in the air of occultism in which the whole is envel-
oped. If the investigators were trained in the psychological laboratory, we might
expect interesting discoveries in regard to mind, while at the same time the re-
pellent mysticism would disappear along with odic force, animal magnetism,
thought-transference, and other ghosts, (pp. 68-9).^
This intimation of the reception the problem would meet in the
usual psychological laboratory might be supplemented by a quotation
from another psychologist :
Jastrow, who says:
I must not fail to point out, however, that experiments in thought-transfer-
ence have one important, and that a logical, advantage over observations of coin-
cidences; this is the possibility which they present of quite accurately allowing
for the effect of chance, (p. 97).
. . . While I incline to the belief that the hypothesis of telepathy is, as usu-
ally advanced and in essence, an illegitimate one, I still regard it as possible that
in the future some modification of this hypothesis may be found, which will bring
it within the scope of a liberal conception of the scientific (p. loi).^
As a matter of fact, however, the psychological laboratories in some
universities *• have proved hospitable to the investigation of telepathy
by their conduct of systematic experiments on it, and the press *^ an-
notmces that in the Harvard laboratory, where arrangements have been
made for psychical research, testing for "telepathic sensitiveness" in
people in general is in progress. It may yet be possible to carry out the
program recently suggested by The Hermit of Prague.®® After noting
that the integrity of the subjects in the older investigations has not al-
ways been found to be reliable, and that for the purpose "of convincing
the world that the truth about telepathy has already been discovered,
the recorded experiments of the Society for Psychical Research are al-
most without value" (p. 431), he recommends the appointment of a
conmiission to induce experimental psychologists, who are best equipped
to discover telepathy, to take up the investigation in laboratories all over
the world. Whenever one finds success, let him pass on the "sensitive"
from one laboratory to another, until it is agreed that fraud and error
are eliminated and telepathy is established as either a fact or a delusion.
»» Jastrow, Jos.: Fact and Fable in Psychology. Boston, 1900.
»• Notably in Clark and Cornell.
^^The Unpopular Review, Jan.-Mch. 1917, 7:210.
••The Hermit of Prague: Materialism and telepathy. Bedrock, 1914,
3:423-434.
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EXPERIMENTS ON THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE
Since 1882, when organized investigation of telepathy began, prom-
inent investigators and students of psychical phenomena have suggested
that this super-normal process is a common faculty shared by all men.
F. W. H. Myers, 1884:
If we find telepathy in mesmeric and spontaneous trance, we may infer that
it is not inseparably linked with the ordinary stream of normal consciousness. If
it appears as an element of consciousness or quasi-consciousness of abnormal
states, which themselves form the mere lacunae in the main life-memory, it may
be surmised to exist beneath the threshold of consciousness in normal states also,
(p. 220) .»•
Charles Richet, 1884:
La suggestion mentale est Tinfluence que la pens^ d'un individu exerce dans
un sens d6termin6, sans ph^nom^e ext^rieur appreciable i nos sens, sur la pen-
s^ d'un individu voisin. (p. 615).
De ces chiffres, de ces experiences peuvent, je crois, se d^duire, en toute
rigueur, cette conclusion: Chez des personnes adultes, en bonne sant^, non h3mo-
tis^es, ni hynotisables, il est possible que la suggestion mentale se fasse sentir.
Cette suggestion mentale est meme, dans une certaine mesure, probable ; mais avec
un degr6 de probability qui ne d^passe gu^re 1/16 (i/io?). (p. 632) .•«
Edmund Gumey, in 1886:
If it [telepathy] exists, we have no reason to expect it to be extremely un-
common; on the contrary, we should rather expect to find an appreciable degree
of it tolerably widely diflfused.*<»«
Bergson, 1913:
If telepathy is a real fact, it is a fact that is capable of being repeated indefi-
nitely. I go further: if telepathy is a real fact, it is very possible that it is oper-
ating at every moment and everywhere, but with too little intensity to be noticed,
or else it is operating in the presence of obstacles which neutralize the effect at
the same moment that it manifests itself, (p. 160).*^
«» Myers, F. W. H. : On a telepathic explanation of some so-called spiritual-
istic phenomena. Proceedings S,P.R,, 1884, 2:217-237.
•0 Richet, Charles: La suggestion mentale et le calcul des probabilit^s. Re-
vue Philosophique, Paris, 1884, 18:609-674.
•«• Phantasms of the Living, vol. I, pp. 84-5.
•* Bergson, Henri: Presidential address (before the S. P.R.), delivered May
j8, 1913. Proceedings S. P. R., 1914* 27 : I57-I75.
39
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30
THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE
Consequently, they have frequently urged, as the reader has perhaps
noted in the quotations some pages above, continued experimentation
with normal subjects. For example, Sir Oliver Lodge, in 1909, wrote:
Another thing on which I should value experiments is the detection of slight
traces of telepathic power in quite normal persons — in the average man for in-
stance, or, rather more likely perhaps, in the average child. The power of receiv-
ing telepathic impressions may be a rare faculty existing only in a few individuals,
and in them fully developed; but it is equally possible, and, if one may say so,
more likely, that what we see in them is but an intensification of a power which
exists in every one as a germ or nucleus. If such should be the fact, it behooves
us to know it ; and its recognition would do more to spread a general belief in the
fact of telepathy — z belief by no means as yet universally or even widely spread —
than almost anything else. (pp. 32-3).**
The investigations included in Part I were designed primarily to
put this hypothesis to further test. Other, subsidiary, aims were met
through the detail of method employed, and will be found stated in the
introductory paragraphs to each division. The following table shows
the number of reagents (percipients) employed, the nature of the re-
agent, the material guessed at, and the number of experiments :
Division
Number of
Reagents
Nature of
Reagents
Material guessed at Number of
Experiments
I
I
Normal
Lotto-Block Numbers 1000
II
100
5
IS
«
"Psychic"
Playing Cards loooo
" (Corneal reflection) 500
1000
III
24
145
Normal
"Staring" 2400
Totals
14900
** Lodge, Oliver : The Survival of Man, a study in unrecognized human fac-
ulty. New York, igop.
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GUESSING OF LOTTO-BLOCK NUMBERS 31
I. GUESSING OF LOTTO-BLOCK NUMBERS."
Introduction.
^ Quotations from authoritative sources have akeady been offered the
reader for the purpose of acquainting him with the present unsettled
Status of the telepathic hypothesis, but no effort has been made to place
before him the evidence upon which to exercise his own judgment.
It will be recalled that experimental evidence in favor of the hy-
pothesis is regarded as imposing but not readily acceptable. Two rea- j
sons for caution may be mentioned : ( i ) The hypothesis not being con- /
sistent with a psychological law which we may call ''the principle of the
sensorial gateway," must be supported by evidence sufficiently over-
whelming to controvert that law in order to become acceptable; (2) •
Trustworthy negative results already published are equally imposing, i
with respect, at least, to the question of the general distribution of the \
telepathic function. ^
The reader may get a fairly accurate idea of the present situation
from the following series of researches and their resultant criticisms :
(i) Extensive experimentation** conducted by Mrs. Henry Sidg-
wick upon Lotto-Block guessing by hypnotized subjects, yielded results
favorable for thought-transference. If the results of good and bad days
are combined and the two digits of each number counted as separate
numbers, (as in Table VII, p. 168), the Right cases are 30% of the
total 1356 guesses, as against a probability of about 11% ; but if the re-
sults of good days are considered separately, for two reagents (P. and
T.) we get •• 27% Right cases on the two-place numbers out of 374 ex-
periments, as against the probability of 1.23%. The impressions seemed
to come in visual form, yet the sense of sight could not have been oper-
ative. In a discussion of the possible contribution of the senses, all
seemed to be ruled out; the least improbable, in case any could have
been active, was said to be that of hearing, made effective through the
** Conducted during the year 1912-13.
^ Sidgwick, Professor and Mrs., and Smith, G. A. : Experiments in thought-
transference. Proceedings S, P. R,, 1889-90, 6 : 12^-170.
Sidgwick, Mrs. Henry, and Johnson, Miss Alice: Experiments in thought-
transference. Proceedings S.P.R,, 1892, 8:536-596.
•• From Tables I and II, op. ctt, pp. 146, 150.
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32 THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE
unconscious whispering on the part of the agent; but tables failed to
show this sense operative, since there was no heaping up of errors ac-
cording to the similarity of sounds of the digits.
(2) Hansen and Lehmann,** taking the cue of auditory communica-
tion, conducted a similar investigation on Lotto-Block guessing, chang-
ing the conditions of experimentation to test its efficacy; large parabolic
reflectors which augmented the intensity of the sound fourteen times,
were set up with axes coinciding and foci a meter apart; the agent sat
facing his reflector, his mouth at its focus, and permitted himself to rep-
resent the number to himself in inner speech in a way which he calls in-
voluntary whispering (imwillkurliches Fliistem) ; to a bystander neither
sound nor movement of the closed mouth and lips was observable. The
percipient, in the normal state and sitting with his ear at the focus of
his reflector, was influenced in his guessing so that in 86 and 80 experi-
ments in which the chances were 1:1.2, 34% and 32% respectively of
the guesses wer/» correct ; and, when the digits were combined, the prob-
ability being about 11%, there were 54% Right cases in the 1000 guesses.
They compared the errors in this series with those in the series of
guesses upon two-place numbers presented visually by a tachistoscope
so quickly as to remain indefinite, together with those of the Sidgwick
experimentation, and concluded that the results of the latter were un-
doubtedly owing to involuntary whispering. The h)rperaesthesia of the
hypnotized reagents and their favorable positions for sound perception
were conditions said to be accountable for success even when the agent
and percipient sat in different rooms.
(3) Critique of the latter by Professor Sidgwick*^ and by Profes-
sor James." The former pointed out that (a) by trial with a reagent
practiced in perceiving faint whispers, and by watching the former
agent for indications of movement of the vocal organs in the submaxil-
lary regions, no involuntary whispering could be detected, (ft) Owing
to faulty methods of comparison of errors, Hansen and Lehmann's con-
clusions are "quite inconclusive," since the agreements of the most fre-
•« Hansen, F. C. C, und Lehmann, Alfred: Ueber unwillkurliches Flustcm.
Philosophische Studien, 1895, 11:471-530.
•' Sidgwick, Professor Henry : Involuntary whispering considered in relation
to experiments in thought-transference. Proceedings S.P.R,, 1896-97, 12:298-315.
••James, Wm.: Review of Hansen arid Lehmann's work, in Psychological
Review, 1896, 3:98-100; see also, review of Sidgwick's critique, Psychological Re-
view, 4:654-5, and Lehmann and Hansen on the telepathic problem. Science,
1898, 8:956.
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GUESSING OF LOTTO-BLOCK NUMBERS 33
quent substitutions between the results of the Sidgwick experimentation
and the results of a series in which the agent and percipient were lo-
cated in different houses, in which the correct guesses could be regarded
as governed by pure chance, and in which the whispering could not be
effective, are as close as between the former and the results of the Han-
sen and Lehmann experimentation, (c) Involuntary whispering could
not have been instrumental to the success of the experiments in which
the agent and percipient were separated by a closed door and a consid-
erable space (lo to 20 feet).
James agrees with Sidgwick that Hansen and Lehmann did not
prove their point; he reports that he made up looo guesses on two-
place numbers, under the condition of whispering with lips closed, and
found that substitutions do not agree more closely with the Sidgwick
results than with chance. He notes that Parish •• also agrees with Sidg-
wick.
(4) Lehmann wrote in reply to James's inquiry asking him what he
himself thought of his conclusions in the light of the criticisms in ques-
tion:
"Your own as well as Professor Sidgwick's experiments and com-
putations prove beyond a doubt that play of chance had thrown into my
hands a result distinctly too favorable to my theory; and that the said
theory is consequently not yet established (bewiesen)."*^
(5) Lehmann, in a recently revised work,**^^ still holds to his "Un-
willkurliches Flustem" hypothesis as being sufficiently proved to hold
for the Sidgwick results; but grants Professor Sidgwick, for the suc-
cess of the experiments in which agent and percipient were separated
by a door and a considerable distance, another factor: "Andere Um-
stande fiir eine solche Telepathie sprechen, deren Natur noch ganzlich
unbekannt ist" ; namely, subliminal impressions, etc., which he discusses
in Kapitel 34 under the title of "Das Eingreifen des Unbewussten in das
Bewusstsein." (p. 512).
The results favorable for thought-transference still stand unex-
plained. It is true that there have been from the earliest researches
••Parish, Edmund: Halludnations and Illusions. New York: Scribners,
1897, p. 3^0, note.
^•o James: Messrs. Lehmann and Hansen on telepathy. Science, 1899^
9:654-5.
^•^ Lehmann, Alfred : Auberglaube und Zauberei. 2te Aul, Stuttgart : Enke,
1908, p. 464.
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34 THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE
critics ^^* who have not wearied in pointing out errors of experimenta-
tion and observation to which the favorable results are probably due.
But in spite of illtuninating knowledge of unconscious muscular activity,
subliminal impressions, suggestion, mental habits, variability of experi-
mental chance, etc., there has been no thorough-going research by psy-
chologists, besides the abortive one by Hansen and Lehmann, to deter-
mine the conditions and processes responsible for results favorable for
thought-transference without contact.
It would be gratifying to know whether the percipient is successful
only when in an abnormal condition as in hypnosis or trance, or has
some advantage for subliminal impression from the reflection of the
cornea or vibrations of the tympanic membrane (if such occur with
strong auditory imagery or with osseous disturbance accompanying kin-
aesthetic imagery— one of which is suggested by the finding of Ab-
bott's ^^ investigation of the phenomena of a certain trumpet medium).
Richet at one time was quite confident that the equivalent of
thought transference, "suggestion mentale," was to a small degree (3%
to 10%) a common human capacity. But Preyer*^ showed that the
deviations from probability upon which Richet had based his conclusions
are not only equalled but surpassed by experimental chance (in lottery
drawings in series of equal length to that of Richet). And the 11,130
guesses upon digits, by 27 different percipients, collected by the Conunit-
tee on Thought-Transference, of the American S. P. R., indicated by
their 10.17% of Right cases, as against the 10% of theoretical probabil-
ity, that Richet was probably in error. Jamcs,*^ in his presidential
address before the S. P. R., said of Richet's supposition : '*! am inclined
to think [it is] not very well substantiated. Thought-transference may
involve a critical point, as physicists call it, which is passed only when
certain psychic conditions are realized, and otherwise not reached at all —
just as a big conflagration will break out at a certain temperature, below
which no conflagration whatever, big or little, can occur." (p. 4). And
Lehmann, in his chapter "Das Gedankenlesen und die Gedankenuber-
tragung," says: "Aus spater zu erortenden Grunden ist aller Wahr-
io« Among others, Prcyer, Baird, Braid, Carpenter, Morselli, Vaschide,
Marbc, Jastrow, Hall, Tanner. ,
lo* Abbott, David P. : The history of a strange case. Open Court, June 1908.
io4preycr, W.: Die Erklarung des Gedankenlesens. Leipzig: Grieben, 1886,
p. 70.
*•• James: Address by the president. Proceedings S.P,R., 1896-97,, 12:2-10.
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GUESSING OF LOTTO-BLOCK NUMBERS 35
scheinlichkeit nach cine Mitwirkung der telepathischen Krafte indes nur
dann anzunehmen, wenn der Empfanger hypnotisiert ist oder sich in
einem ahnlichen Zustande bcfindct." (p. 464)-*^
The object of this division of our experimentation is to get a
"norm" (or standard measure) for normal persons, with which we may
compare results from "sensitives." The subjective conditions of guess-
ing are scrutinized, and by carrying on "control" experiments we hope
to establish an inductive probability with which we may compare our
results as well as with the theoretical probability.
Method.
Our blocks are of light hard wood, 15 nun. in diameter, 8 mm.
high, and the black Arabic numerals are printed in heavily shaded Ro-
man type, 8 nmi. high. As in the former researches, the two-place num-
bers up to and including 90 were used.
The reagent (percipient) sat in an arm-leaf chair with his back to
the experimenter (agent), and after each experiment (each guess of a
double number) noted introspections in a tabulated form under the fol-
lowing headings: (a) Was the mind in a thoroughly receptive mood?
(b) Grade of certainty of judgment, or vividness of imagery, (c) Kind
of impression (visual, auditory, or Idnaesthetic), (d) Temporal course
of the impression (sudden or slow in appearance, early in the period or
late, persistent, recurring), (e) Spatial attributes (where apparently lo-
cated). The grading was to be A, B, C, D, m descending order; and
in case certainty of judgment diflfered from vividness of imagery, two
grades were to be given.
The period during which the reagent was to seek an impression of
some number from 10 to 90, was at first 20 seconds, but upon the re-
quest of the reagent was later reduced to 15 seconds. The reagent dur-
ing this period shaded his closed eyes with his hand, rested his head
comfortably with elbow upon the arm of the chair, and sought a quiet,
receptive state of mind. He knew that the block might not be looked
at by the experimenter until after his guess was recorded by himself,
and that if its number was held in imagery the latter might be visual,
kinaesthetic, or auditory, or combinations of these.
The experimenter sat facing the reagent's back, drew from a bag a
Lotto-Block, and, if the numbered side came up, made ready to hold it
^••Lehinann: Aberglaube tind Zauberei, pp. 458-465.
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36 THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE
in some kind of vivid imagery, shook the dice-box, tapped with his pen-
cil once to inform the reagent that the period of impression began, then
held or did not hold imagery of the number; and after 15 seconds
tapped twice to close the period of impression. When the numbered
side of the block came up, imagery was held according to the face cast
by the die, as follows: (i) Visual impression; (2) Kinaesthetic image
(care being taken to avoid an auditory accompaniment, and also any
movements of pronunciation great enough to be felt; (3) Auditory im-
agery (stripped of its usual kinaesthetic accompaniment) ; (4) Com-
bination of I and 2; (s) of i and 3; (6) of 2 and 3. In order that
there would be no confusion, the experimenter kept before him a card
with the kinds of impressions, or imagery, tabulated by number, upon it.
In case the blank side of the block was drawn, the dice-box was shaken,
and the experiment progressed in every way like its alternate; except
that the experimenter refrained from thinking of numbers (by musing
upon an ocean scene). After the reagent had recorded his guess and
while he was writing his introspections, the experimenter recorded the
block-number, and the face of the die, and indicated whether the num-
ber was imaged. Accompanying the imaging of the number was a de-
termined set of the will that it be communicated to the reagent. The
distance between experimenter and reagent was changed every 20 ex-
periments, irregularly over the following distances in meters: i, 2, 3,
4.6, 6, 10.
The reagent was given all the time he wished to note his introspec-
tions, which at the beginning was up to about 10 minutes ; after he be-
came more familiar with the procedure the time settled down to half a
minute, and the rate of the experiments became one a minute. A sitting
was never continued after the fatigue point had been reached ; the num-
ber of experiments ranged from 20 to 50, but was rarely over 30 during
the first half of the experimentation. The sittings took place in the first
hour of the afternoon, on alternate days, three times a week. The ex-
periments numbered 1000. The conditions of quiet and regularity of
procedure usual in the psychological laboratory obtained. Neither ex-
perimenter nor reagent knew how the results were coming out until the
whole ten series had been concluded.
The reagent, Harold A. Hughes, registering from Massachusetts,
was a major in the Department of Psychology, and was doing advanced
laboratory work. He is versatile and responsive by nature. His replies
to a questionnaire record that (a) He sometimes has the feeling of be-
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GUESSING OF LOTTO-BLOCK NUMBERS 37
ing Stared at, with the conviction that the feeling can be relied upon;
(ft) He has not had premonitions of important events, but knows per-
sons who have had; (c) He has mental pictures of coming or distant
events, and (d) he sees pictures in water-glasses, etc.; (e) He has
found that he can cause a person in front of him in an audience to turn
around by "willing^' it; (/) He has never been hypnotized, (a) and
(e) testify to his belief in his own power in a phase of telepathic ex-
perience, and (ft) supports (a) and (e) in indicating his belief in tele-
pathic phenomena; (c) and (d) indicate probably nothing more than
strong visual imagery. This student seemed, therefore, a good reagent
for our purpose. Nothing was wanting in the seriousness and faithful-
ness with which he carried forth his end of the research.
The favorable state of mind of the reagent during the interval
given for impression can be seen from his written description : "When
the signal came I made my mind a blank and just waited for a number
to be impressed upon me. ... I did not consider diflferent alternatives,
nor did I try to *guess' some number. I just let some number enter my
mind — ^without trying in the least to make it any certain number."
The experimenter (the writer) took his advanced work in science
in psychology, from which department he has received the higher de-
grees, and has had considerable experience in the laboratory, both as
reagent and as experimenter. While at a small college he made some
experiments, during February 1891, in hypnotism (then known to him
as Mesmerism), and the records of his diary support his memory to the
effect that experiments in telepathy and clairvoyance were successful.
He had ten subjects, some of whom were hypnotized a half-dozen times.
But that was before he had received any training in science, and he
realizes that h^ was competent neither as an experimenter nor as an ob-
server, and he is therefore somewhat agnostic as to the results of his
experimentation; yet, when he re-reads his notes, he cannot avoid the
conviction that here is a worthy field for scientific investigation. His
former success has inspired him with confidence in his power to main-
tain the psychical conditions of an agent, favorable for thought-trans-
ference ; it was in this spirit that he performed his part of the present
experimentation.
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38
THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE
Results.
The numerical results were tabulated under the headings of the
"Number Not Imaged" and "Number Imaged'' experiments. It is to
be noted therefore that the averages of the "Number Imaged" experi-
ments may be compared with those of an Experimental Probability as
well as with the Theoretical Probability in order to determine whether
any cause besides chance has been operative toward Right cases.
The complete and partial successes for each of the lo Series, of
100 experiments each, are tabulated in Tables I and II :
TABLE L NUMBER NOT IMAGED.
Series
Whole No.
Ten's
Unit's
Ten's for Unit's for Trans-
Total
of 100
Correct
Correct
Correct
Unit's
Ten's
posed
N. I.
I.
I
8
9
0
2
0
49
2.
I
4
I
2
I
SI
J.
I
4
5
I
57
4'
0
5
4
I
47
i.
0
8
2
0
48
6.
0
3
5
I
54
7.
o
2
2
0
41
B.
0
5
2
0
47
p.
2
6
6
0
51
10.
2
6
6
0
51
Totals
"6
SO
40
37
40
4
5<»
TABLE IL NUMBER IMAGED.
Series
Whole No.
Ten's
Unifs
Ten's for Unit's for Trans-
Total
of 100
Correct
Correct
Correct
Unifs
Ten's
posed
L
J.
2
4
4
0
I
0
51
2,
0
5
8
2
5
0
49
3-
I
8
3
2
I
43
4-
I
7
4
4
0
53
5.
0
8
2
I
Sa
6.
I
5
6
3
46
7.
0
7
6
2
59
8.
o
3
6
3
53
p.
0
5
6
3
3
43
10.
0
7
4
I
6
0
49
Totals
59
33
30
498
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GUESSING OF LOTTO-BLOCK NUMBERS
39
Number Imaged.
TABLE III. COMPARISON.
Unit's Ten's for Unit's for Trans-
Correct Unit's Ten's posed
51 33 30 6
io.a% 6.6% 6.0% 1.23%
Whole No. Ten's
Correct Correct
5 64
1.00% 12.8%
Total
498
5«
Nmnber Not Imaged. 6 56 46 37 40 4
1.18% IM% 9.1% 74% S.0% 0.8 %
Probability 1^3% 12.5% 10.0% 6.9% 6.9% a8s%
The totals of the second and third columns of Table III include, of course,
the totals of the preceding column, since when a whole number is correct both the
ten's and the unit's digits are also correct
In the calculation of Probability, the ratios have been changed to per cents.
A whole number stands one chance in 81 of being correct ; a ten's digit i :8.i, since
there are but eight, each with its ten units, and the number 90; a unit's digit i :io;
a ten's digit for a unit's digit, i :i4*5> since among the 81 numbers there are 25
which cannot be transposed, as, 10, 20, 30 . . ., 19, 29, 39 . . ., 11, 22, 33
.. . ., which reduces the chance of success to 56/81 of 1:10; a unit's digit for a
ten's digit, also 1:14.5; for the same reason, a transposed number, 56/81 of 1:81,
or 1 .117.
Tables IV and V show the distribution of the guessed upon the
drawn numbers, and are comparable with the tables published by Mrs.
Sidgwick and Hansen and Lehmann, except that these authors combined
the guesses on the unit's and ten's digits. We have not done so for the
reason that the reagent differed from those of Mrs. Sidgwick in that he
got his impressions as double instead of single numbers. For the pur-
pose of showing ntunber habits separation is desirable, and, as is indi-
cated above, the probability ratios of the two are different.
TABLE IV. UNIT'S DIGIT. NUMBER NOT IMAGED.
Guessed
Drawn
0
/
2
S
4
5
6
7
8
9
Totals
0
J
2
B
4
5
6
7
8
P
Total
5
4
8
10
5
3
3
4
3
3
48
5
3
6
2
5
4
9
6
5
6
SI
4
4
4
3
3
5
4
8
6
6
47
6
7
5
6
5
3
5
6
3
7
53
8
3
7
4
6
7
3
6
5
9
58
5
2
8
4
3
6
7
7
6
2
50
5
6
5
4
4
5
3
3
3
3
4a
9
6
8
7
3
5
9
5
2
9
62
2
3
10
5
I
4
5
5
4
3
43
7
7
3
2
7
4
4
7
4
4
49
S6 45 ^ 47
46 53 57 41
502
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40
THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE
TABLE V. TEN'S DIGIT. NUMBER NOT IMAGED.
Drawn
/
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Totals
Guessed
/
2
s
i
5
6
7
8
P
13
i8
17
6
3
3
4
3
0
15
9
17
14
2
8
5
4
2
13
II
14
II
3
5
7
6
0
2
8
14
10
8
12
8
2
2
10
10
II
13
3
2
4
7
0
9
6
9
7
4
2
5
2
2
15
14
II
10
9
3
4
I
I
8
12
6
7
4
5
3
1
O
I
0
I
0
0
0
I
0
0
86 88 100 78 36
40
41 26
Total
67
76
70
66
60
46
68
46
3
502
Drawn
Totals
Drawn
I
2
B
4
5
6
7
8
9
Totals
TABLE VI. UNIT'S DIGIT. NUMBER IMAGED.
Guessed
0123456TS9
58 50 66 47
51
40 44 53 45
44
TABLE VII. TEN'S DIGIT. NUMBER IMAGED.
Guessed
/
2
3
4
5
6
7
5
9
4
10
13
9
4
5
6
I
I
9
18
12
10
2
6
5
8
I
9
10
12
12
4
4
5
7
0
6
15
8
11
5
3
6
5
2
10
12
9
5
6
6
5
3
I
12
II
10
7
6
3
4
3
I
9
8
II
13
7
5
8
4
2
8
9
13
10
10
6
4
2
I
0
I
0
I
0
2
2
0
0
Total
0
6
8
9
7
7
5
3
7
5
8
65
/
4
4
5
7
9
7
8
3
3
13
63
2
6
2
4
6
5
2
5
5
2
I
38
3
7
6
4
5
4
5
3
3
9
2
48
4
8
6
5
2
10
I
5
5
4
47
5
4
3
3
4
I
6
4
10
6
45
6
3
3
II
8
2
5
4
4
4
47
7
7
4
12
3
4
4
4
8
6
57
8
5
8
6
2
4
4
3
2
0
37
9
8
6
7
3
5
I
5
6
6
51
67 94 88 78 44
40
45 33
498
Total
53
71
63
61
57
57
67
63
6
498
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GUESSING OF LOTTO-BLOCK NUMBERS 41
An examination of Tables I-III does not warrant the conclusion
that the judgments of the reagent were influenced by the imagery in
the mind of the experimenter ; nor do the errors in the Tables IV-VII
show it, by similarity of sight or sound of the digits. But, supposing
that some imknown cause counteracted a telepathic influence, and thus
kept it from being shown in these particular tables, other tests are at
hand. If there was a transference of thought at all, it is reasonable to
suppose that successful guesses would be positively correlated with the
high grades of certainty in the "Number Imaged" experiments, but not
in the "Number Not Imaged" experiments; that some particular form
of imagery would, for this reagent, be more efficient than the others;
that some particular distance would be the more favorable ; and that in
successful guesses the imagery in the mind of the reagent would con-
form in kind with that in the mind of the experimenter.
If we call Right cases the experiments in which the whole number,
the ten's digit, or the unit's digit, is right, the two following tables show
the relationship between Right cases and Certainty of guesses.
Table VIII shows the distribution of the three grades over the
"Not Imaged" and the "Imaged" experiments (B is the highest, D the
lowest grade of certainty) :
TABLE VIIL
B % C % D %
Total Grades 352 557 91
R Cases, Number Not Imaged... 31 8-8% 50 9.0% 14 i54%
R Cases, Number Imaged 39 ".1% 62 11.1% 9 9.9^
Almost as many highly graded guesses (lacking but 2%) were
made in the "Number Not Imaged" experiments.
Table IX shows the distribution of the highest and lowest grades
over the three kinds of successes, for the "Number Not Imaged" and
the "Number Imaged" experiments:
TABLE IX.
Whole Grand
Grade No. Ten's Unit's Total Total %
Number Not Imaged B 2 17 12 31 180 17.2
" D o 9 6 15 50 30.0
Number Imaged B i 26 12 39 172 22.6
" D I 4 4 9 42 2M
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^2 THOUGHT-TRANSFEKENCE
The greater number of B's on the ten's digit successes in the "Num-
ber Imaged" experiments is the only advantage the table shows; this,
however, is but moderate, and is probably offset by the facts (i) that
about the same proportion of JD's as of B's have correlated with suc-
cesses, (2) that no advantage is shown on the unit's digit, and (3) that
the grades of the few complete successes are somewhat lower in the
"Number Imaged" than in the "Number Not Imaged" experiments.
The data seem to warrant the conclusion that Certainty of guesses
does not correlate with Right cases.
Whether any sort of imagery was more efficient than others, may
be determined by a distribution of the Right cases over the die-spots,
since the latter determined the respective forms of imagery :
TABLE X.
Whole Grand
Die No. Ten's Unit's Total Total %
Number Not Imaged / . i 7 7 15 78 loa
^ ^3 7 20 7S aS.7
S 7 4 II 91 I2.I
" 4 I 9 6 16 87 184
" 5 I 7 6 14 86 16.3
" " 6 3 7 10 20 85 23.5
Number Imaged / i 9 5 15 81 18.5
" ^ 9 6 15 95 15^8
" B 8 10 18 84 214
" 4 16 8 24 8s 28.2
" 5 3 II II 35 82 30.S
" 6 I 6 6 13 71 ia3
Although the per cents show some variation, it appears to be gov-
erned by chance: the 4-spot and the 5-spot seem to be more efficient,
but the same might be said of the 2-spot in the "Number Not Imaged"
experiments. Since the latter is obviously a chance variation, the for-
mer, being but slightly larger, must be held to be probably chance vari-
ations also. The imagery determined by the 4-spot and the S-spot was,
respectively (Visual impression) -f- (Kinaesthetic image) and (Visual
impression) -|- (Auditory image) ; since the visual impression was com-
mon to both, one would expect its efficiency alone to be greater than
that of the Kinaesthetic or Auditory imagery alone, and i is but inter-
mediate between 2 and 3, and is lower than i, 2, and 6, in the upper part
of the table; moreover, the experimenter found 5 the most difficult im-
agery to hold vividly, as any one else probably will if he tries it. The
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GUESSING OF LOTTO-BLOCK NUMBERS 43
imagery Hansen and Lehmann tried to prove accountable for the suc-
cesses in Mrs. Sidgwick's research is 2, which in the table is correlated
with the lowest per cent. The experimenter, being of the kinaesthetic
type, and finding that imagery more easily held in a vivid form, might
reasonably have expected the highest per cent on 2.
We are probably safe in concluding that no particular form of im-
agery was more efficient than any other in conditioning Right cases.
Whether some particular distance was most favorable may be de-
termined from the following table, which distributes the Right cases
over the six distances used :
TABLE XL
Meters i 3 3 4.6 6 10
Number Not Imaged— total cases 89 34 94 71 104 no
" " " —total right cases.. 22 4 23 16 16 16
Percent 24.7 11.8 24.5 22.5 154 14.6
Number Imaged — ^total cases 91 26 86 109 96 90
" —total right cases 18 7 16 26 23 18
Per cent 19^ 26.9 18.6 23,9 24-0 20.0
But few experiments were made on the 2-meter mark, and these
per cents may be disregarded. If any distance is more favorable than
another it is 6 meters ; but as much advantage is shown by i meter in
the "Number Not Imaged" experiments. The latter being a chance
variation, the former probably is also.
We may probably safely conclude that no particular distance was
the more favorable for Right cases.
Number Habits.
As has been pointed out by Mrs. Sidgwick,^^ number habits on the
part of the reagent alone cannot, except by chance, augment the num-
ber of Right cases; they would even resist a telepathic influence and
tend to keep it from operating in the process of guessing and from be-
ing shown in the numerical results. They are of interest, however, in
revealing some of the subjective conditions of guessing, on the part of
individual reagents.
An inspection of Tables IV- VII reveals the fact that guesses were
not distributed equally on the double numbers. The totals of the re-
JOT Proaedings S. P. R., 6 :i70.
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44
THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE
agent's guesses below 50 are much greater than above 50. (See Tables
V and VII). The ratios are:
Not Imaged 327 :i62 = 2.02
Imaged 352 :i43 = 246
The 30's in the "Number Not Imaged" and the 20's in the "Number
Imaged" experiments were guessed the more often; while the average
number of guesses per number is 6, of the forty numbers below 50
>
Plate II. — Showing Mental Habit in the Guessing of Two-place Numbers.
Guesses are represented by broken lines; drawings by solid lines.
twenty-seven in the "Number Not Imaged" experiments, and twenty-
one in the "Number Imaged" experiments, were guessed over 7 times;
the number 37 in the former was guessed 16 times, the ntunber 32 in
the latter 15 times; in the former the numbers 68 and 86, and in the
latter the number 10, were not guessed at all.
Of the unit's digits, 2 and 7, in the order named, show a slight
preference. Plate II shows the difference between the guessing and the
drawing of the digits.
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guessing of lotto-block numbers 45
Imagery.
As was noted above, the reagent knew in what kinds of imagery
the experimenter would hold the numbers. Whether it was on this ac-
count or because he customarily has vivid imagery in different modes,
he differed from our more naive reagents in recording three, and later
four, kinds of imagery as the forms in which the number came into his
mind. In the 4th 100 he distinguished Kinaesthetic- Auditory from Audi-
tory, and fell oflF in Visual imagery from 20% to 6% ; the Kinaesthetic-
Auditory increasing from 0% to 21%. The following table shows the
change that occurred in his imagery, as well as its distribution over the
various kinds.
TABLE XII.
Kinds of Imagery., i
Avg. of first 300. ..22%
Avg. 4th-ioth loo's. . 6%
2
3
4
5
6
37%
40%
0.
0.
0.3%
40%
32%
0.4%
0.1%
22%
1. Visual 4. I -h 2
2. Kinaesthetic 5. 1 + 3
3. Auditory 6. 2 4- 3
Within these two periods the ratios are very uniform, which would
hardly be the case unless there had been a change in the reagent's im-
pressions and the latter had been pretty faithfully described. The only
change due to keener analysis of his experience is the sorting out of the
Kin.-A. images from the Auditory ones. The Kin.-A. imagery involves
imagery of movements of pronunciation and of the sound of his own
voice; the Auditory alone involved the imagery of a voice (not his
own) whispering the number to him or speaking it from a position in
front and to the right or from a point in the top of his head. The Vis-
ual imagery pictured the figures written on a blackboard about a meter
and a half in front, in white 2 inches high, or printed on small blocks
the size of a dime (a ten-cent-piece), held in the experimenter's hand.
Some variation from the rule was the appearance of vivid memory
images ; as 20 on a $20 bill, 22 on a red background (the front of the
campus electric car), or the 33 of the Hudson automobile; these, how-
ever, occurred very rarely.
With respect to the time and manner of appearance of the imagery,
tabulation shows that the Visual imagery usually appeared suddenly,
and in the early part of the period given for the impression ; Kin. im-
agery changed by the 4th 100 from about 50% of the cases coming late
to 75% coming early, and it came suddenly; the Auditory changed in
the 2d 100 from about 2/3 early to about 2/3 late, and it was some-
times slow in forming; the Kin.-A. imagery came regularly suddenly
and early.
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46 THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE
Tabulation of the imagery of the successful guesses shows that the
kind of imagery in the experimenter's mind did not coincide with the
kind of imagery in the reagent's mind more often in the "Number Im-
aged" experiments than did the corresponding dice-numbers in the
"Number Not Imaged" experiments.^ And special cases of vividness
calling for extra note either fall upon experiments when the block was
not looked at or do not agree in imagery with that held in the experi-
menter's mind
The feeling of certainty that the impression had an objective source
seemed to depend upon
1. Vividness of the imagery,
2. Early appearance,
3. Flashing out,
4. Persistence or recurrence.
This is true even of the memory images of 20, 22, etc. (It may be
mentioned in passing that these special ntunbers were not guessed more
often than their neighbors.)
Conclusion.
Although the conditions of our experimentation, and the attitude
and training of the reagent, seemed favorable for thought-transference,
the results of a thousand experiments indicate that the number of suc-
cessful guesses is not beyond either experimental or theoretical prob-
ability; that the feeling of certainty with which judgments are made
does not correlate with Right cases ; that no particular form of the ex-
perimenter's imagery was more efficient than others; that no particular
distance was more favorable than another; that in the successful cases
the kind of imagery in the mind of the reagent did not conform to the
kind of imagery in the mind of the experimenter more often than to
the corresponding die-spots in the experimental probability experiments ;
that the reagent was successful in keeping his mind in such a receptive
condition that impressions seemed to have an objective source; and
that this feeling of certainty of the chance of a guess being right seems
to depend upon the vividness and behavior of the imagery constituting
the impression.
The results of these series of experiments, then, in which a reagent,
in the normal state and under conditions supposedly favorable for
thought-transference, made 498 guesses upon Lotto-Block numbers (from
10-90) when the number was vividly imaged by the experimenter, and
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GUESSING OF LOTTO-BLOCK NUMBERS 47
502 guesses when the number was unknown to the experimenter, without
causing in the results a significant deviation in either group of experi-
ments from theoretical probability, support Professor James in his judg-
ment that Professor Richet's hypothesis to the effect that thought-
transference is a common capacity, to be found in any long series of
guessing in the presence of some one who knows what is being guessed
at, is probably wrong.
The qualitative results of these experiments, afforded by analyses of /
introspections, are of psychological interest in establishing the fact that i
normal persons have experiences which they refer with varying degrees
of certainty to an objective source but which in reality do not depend
upon it. This tendency to project subjective experience is obviously
related to the psychical processes of illusion and hallucination, as an
incipient function to an active one, and is to be regarded as both com-
mon and normal.
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48 THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE
II. GUESSING OF PLAYING-CARDS.
SERIES I. REAGENTS NORMAL.
Successful results in card-guessing by normal reagents (subjects,
percipients) have been reported in not a few experiments on Thought-
Transference ; notably, (i) by the Committee on Thought-Transfer-
ence,^^* of the Society for Psychical Research, in England, in 1882,
who reported 22 out of 248 trials correct, or 8.87%, as against the prob-
ability of 1.92%; (2) by Gumey, Myers, and Podmore,^®* in 1886,
who reported 4760 successes out of 17,653 trials in the guessing of suits,
an excess of 347 over the most probable number, of which the probabil-
ity that it was caused by chance alone was calculated by Edgeworth^^^
to be .000,000,02, or, by another method of calculation,^^^ .000,000,000,8 ;
(3) by Miss B. Lindsay,^^* who reported that out of 976 trials in the
guessing of six uncolored forms (figures on cards), there were made
198 successses, "the odds against obtaining that degree of success by
chance being 1000 to i," or, the probability of the success by chance, as
calculated by Edgeworth,"' being .002; (4) by Messrs. A. J. Shilton
and G. T. Cashmore,^^* who reported that out of 505 trials in the guess-
ing of red, blue, green, and yellow cards, 261 successes were made, the
probability for an extra-chance cause being considered "a trillion trillions
to I," or, as calculated by Edgeworth,^" -9999 [to 37 places] ; (5) by the
Misses Wingfield,^^* who made 2,624 trials in the guessing of two-place
numbers (10-99), the cards being chosen at random by the agent, and
reported 275 successes (not including 78 cases in which the right digits
were guessed in reverse order) as against the most probable ntunber of
29, the probability for extra-chance cause being "the ninth power of a
trillion to i"; (6) by Richet,"^ in France, in 1888-89 and 1889-90, who
io» Proceedings S. P, R., 18812-83, i : 70 flF.
*^* Phantasms of the Living, vol. I, p. 33.
110 Vide, Podmore : Apparitions and Thought-Transference, 1894, p. 27.
1" Proceedings S. P. R., 4 : 203.
*** Phantasms of the Living, i : 34.
"» Proceedings S. P, R., 4 : 203.
^1* Phantasms of the living, i : 34.
"» Proceedings S, P. R., 4: 204.
^1* Phantasms of the Living, i : 34.
1^7 La suggestion mentale et le calcul des probability. Revue Philosophique,
1884, i8:6o9ff.
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GUESSING OF PLAYING-CARDS 49
from II reagents got 789 right guesses on the suit out of 2927 trials,
or 26.99% ^" 21s against the probability of 25%, or, if series of over 100
guesses are discarded because of the possible influence of fatigue, 510
out of 1833 trials, or 27.8% ;"• and from 782 trials, 17 right guesses on
the complete card, or 2.17%, as against 1.92%; (7) by Mr. and Mrs.
Brown,"® in the United States, in 1889, who in 1000 guesses on the
number of the card got 21.9% right as against 10%. Negative results
have been reported by the Conmiittee on Thought-Transferenc?*^ of
the American Society for Psychical Research, in 1885-89, who obtained
from 5500 guesses on the color of the card, by 22 reagents, 50.51%
right cases, while an experimental chance series of 5150 trials yielded
50.35%, and probability is 50% ; and from 4000 guesses on the number
of the card, 10.3% right cases as against a probability of 10%. Nega-
tive results seem to have been encountered in considerable numbers by
the (English) Society for Psychical Research also, but, unfortunately,
were not considered worthy of public record.***
"Card-experiments of the above type offer special conveniences for
the very extended trials which we wish to see carried out: they are
easily made and rapidly recorded." **•
Cards were turned to by Richet *** because they permitted a quanti-
tative calculation of results, and were used by the American Committee
11* For this result the probability has been calculated by Edgeworth to be
.008 (Proceedings S.P.R., 4:202).
11* For this result Edgeworth calculates the probability -to be less than .0013.
(Ibid., p. 203).
^^^ Proceedings Am. S. P. R., Series 1,1: 322-349.
"1 Idem, pp. 6 flF.
122 Vide, Quotations from the Journal S. P. R., on p. 23, and from Thomas
on p. 26. Where successful results alone are regarded as interesting, the pub-
lished results cannot be taken as indicative of the extent to which the telepathic
capacity is shared by people in general. The situation becomes still more critical for
the telepathic hypothesis when psychical-research writers are over-ready to impute
improper experimental procedure to negative results, as Podmore appears to do in
his reference to the experiments carried out under the direction of the American
Society for Psychical Research : "But in the absence of details as to the conditions
under which the experiments were made, no unfavorable inference can fairly be
drawn from these results." (Apparitions and Thought-Transference, p. 27). Our
inductions will be safer if all of the results of investigations which we have reason
to believe have been intelligendy carried out are available for our examination.
i*« Phantasms of the Living, i : 34.
*2*For his later preference for playing-cards, vide, Proceedings S.P.R.,
1889,6:66.
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50 THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE
for the same reason. The numbers of experiments from these two
more authoritative sources are extensive, but further work by others,
of a similar kind, was strongly urged by Richet for the purpose of sub-
stantiating or subverting the results already at hand; and although
many of the experiments carried out under the direction of the Ameri-
can Committee were conducted by men of science, other experiments
under the control customary in the modem psychological laboratory are
desirable to detennine whether their negative results or Richet's slightly
favorable results ^^ shall be expected at large. And playing cards pos-
sess obvious advantages: as apparatus they are easily accessible; they
are convenient to shuffle, cut, and draw by chance; they permit testing
for the relative preference *•• of Thought-Transference for Color, Num-
ber, Form and Internal Speech ; and they offer convenient chance series
of 1:2, 1:4, 1:10, and 1:40 (if the face-cards, or court-cards, are dis-
carded).
In order to test the hypothesis of a conunon "Suggestion Mentale" ;
to analyze out the conditions of experimentation responsible for success,
if found ; to make a psychological study of the mental processes of the
reagent in the thought-transference situation; to get material with
which to make a comparison between inductive and theoretical probabil-
ity; and to establish a "norm" for a definite test for thought-transfer-
ence or clairvoyance: this investigation, continuing through four
years "^ and involving over no sets of 100 experiments each, was made.
* Reagents.
Our research was conducted with the assistance of 105 reagents
(percipients) and 97 experimenters (agents), (the writer acting as ex-
perimenter in 18 sets of experiments). All assisting experimenters and
reagents were students in the general lecture course in psychology or
were doing laboratory work in the department, or both ; were in their
first (29), second (72), third (50), fourth (42), or fifth (7) year of
university work; were pursuing their major subjects of study in twenty
"» Preyer (Die Erklarung des Gcdankcnlcsens, Leipzig, 1886, pp. 48 ff) chal-
lenges Richef 8 results upon which he announced "Suggestion mentale" as a slight
but normal human phenomenon, claiming that the slight excess over probability is
within the limits of chance, and that Richet also discarded unfavorable series.
"• Cf:, Reference to such preference by the American Committee on Thought-
Transference, Proceedings Am.S.P.R., Series i, 1:9, 45, 106, iii.
*»^ 1912-1916.
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GUESSING OP PLAYING-CASDS 51
different departments of the university; and had registered from
twenty-one different states and from various sections of California.
They were thus a fairly representative group of normal people. Their
attitude toward the telepathic hypothesis determined their selection from
the class for this research. It was generally that of positive belief in it.
Of the reagents, most of them expressed confidence, based upon their
own experience, either in "The feeling of being stared at" (40), or in
the power to "Will another to turn around" (i), or in both (45), or in
thought-transference (11); the few undecided or agnostic ones (4)
were open-minded and were willing to give the hypothesis a fair trial.
Of the experimenters, most of them likewise expressed their faith, based
upon their own experience, in the powers of "The feeling of being
stared at" (10), or of "Willing" (7), or of both (59), or in thought-
transference (5) ; again the few undecided or agnostic ones (10) were
open-minded and were willing to do their best to give the hypothesis a
fair trial. Apart from their own experience, almost all of both groups,
including some of the uncertain and agnostic ones, have "convincing
knowledge" of thought-transference experienced in their families or
among their relatives, friends, or acquaintances. As will be shown later,
the experience of the four or five days' work on a set of 100 experi-
ments more often than not left the faith whole and the reagent expect-
ant of statistical proof.*"
Method.
In order to determine whether transferred knowledge, if any should
be found, involved the use of visual imagery, as appeared to be the case
in most of the English experiments, or of kinaesthetic imagery (incip-
ient pronouncing) which Hansen & Lehmann ^*^ found to be effective
in the guessing of ntunbers, the card drawn by the experimenter was
held in his mind in three different forms of content, the form being de-
termined for each experiment by the casting of an odd number of a die :
I, visual impression; 5, kinaesthetic image (stripped of auditory ac-
companiment) ; 5, combined visual impression, kinaesthetic image, and
auditory image. In the first form the upper left-hand comer of the card
was critically inspected, visually defining as vividly as possible the small
Arabic numeral in the comer and the color and form of the pip which
*«• Vide, infra, pp. 109 ff.
^ Philosophische Studien, 189S ii:47i-550.
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52 THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE
determined the suit, and since the rest of the card was not screened, the
general form, number, and distribution of the pips on the card were rep-
resented in non- focal consciousness; in the second form, the comer of
the card was quickly glanced at, then concealed and named in inner
speech (as "Five of Diamonds") with consciousness vividly focused
upon the "feel" of the imaged movement of the vocal organs, abstract-
ing entirely from the image of the sound; in the third form, the first
and second were combined and an auditory image of the experimenter's
own voice in unison with the voices of others shouting the name of the
card; the last form involved some shifting of the attention, but it was
perhaps the most vivid of the three. Besides the cognitive mental con-
tent, the experimenter held in consciousness a determined attitude of
will that the content should reach the reagent.
In order to have an experimental probability with which to com-
pare results, or to determine definitely that phenomena of thought-
transference, if found, are distinct from phenomena of lucidity, if found,
blank or control experiments were provided for in every series, and
were conditioned by an even number of spots on the die. This provision
enables us to avoid certain defects in the entirely separate series of con-
trol experiments.
To determine, within our limits, the influence of distance between
reagent and experimenter, the experimenter, in the first 3000 experi-
ments, moved his chair every 20 experiments, over the following posi-
tions: I, 2, 3, 4.6, 6, and 10 meters. And to determine the influence of
the length of the "interval of impression," the time was varied, in an-
other 2500 experiments, over 20, 40, and 60 seconds, giving the reagent
the privilege, after the first three or five series of his fet, of choosing
his optimal time
Guesses were recorded by the reagent upon the color, number, and
suit, of the card separately. Besides impelling him to inspect his im-
pressions more critically, this device permitted the calculation which
would determine whether color or form is more transferable. The rec-
ord was kept covered by a sheet upon which introspections for each ex-
periment were noted. The latter were tabulated according to the fol-
lowing headings: (i) Was the mind in a good receptive mood? (2)
With respect to the imagery in which your impression came, what was
its (a) Kind (visual, auditory, kinaesthetic) ? (b) Vividness (Grade
A to D, A for very vivid) ? (r) Temporal course (did it come at the
beginning, middle, or end, of the interval; did it come quickly — flash
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GUESSING OF PLAYING-CABDS 53
out — or did it develop slowly ; was it intermittent, persistent, or fleeting) ?
(d) Spatial attribute (where do you image the card, at your back, front,
right, left, and how many meters away; or is it in your head)? (3)
What is the certainty of your judgment? ^'^ (o) Grade A 'to D, A for a
very good chance of its being right; D for only a little better chance
than a pure guess would have, (ft) If you graded your guess above C,
what was there in your experience upon which you rely for your confi-
dence? The following introspections taken from the record will illus-
trate :
Reagent Experiment
/
2
3 ^
a
"T*^^
d
a
^^ ^ ^b
4 15
Yes
V
B bp
fi
B
Gune Immediately
and was very
persistent.
IS 59
Yes
V
B bq
f^
B
Saw it distinctly.
For Reagent 4, in his 15th experiment, the mind was in a good re-
ceptive condition during the interval of impression; the impression of
a card came in visual imagery (V), vividly (B), at the beginning (b)
of the interval, and was persistent (p) ; the card was imaged in front
(f), about I meter distant; the guess was made with a high degree of
certainty (grade B) that it must be right because the impression "Came
immediately and was very persistent." The introspections of Reagent
/J, for his 59th experiment, are similarly interpreted ; except that his im-
pression came quickly (q), and was not noted as persistent; the card
was imaged in front about 3^ a meter distant ; and the guess was given
a high grade of certainty because the reagent "Saw it distinctly." (Fac-
similes of the ruled forms for recording introspections and for recording
guesses may be seen in Appendix B.)
The experimenter with a watch before him, ( i ) shuffles the deck of
40 playing cards (the face cards being discarded ),^'^ cuts the pack,
and holds cards concealed; (2) shakes the dice-box, to determine a con-
trol or regular experiment, and, if the latter, the form of content the
card is to have in his mind; (3) if a regular experiment, he turns
over the pack, exposing to his view the under card, taps once to sig-
nal the reagent that the experimental period begins, holds mental con-
1*0 For reference to the desirability of noting the relation of confidence of
judgment to success, vide, Proceedings Am, S. P. R., Series i, i : lop, 262.
7»iC/., Instructions by the American Committee on Thought-Transference,
Proceedings Am.S.P.R., Series i, 1:46, 262.
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54 THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE
tent of card and wills the content to be projected into the mind of the
reagent, and, after 15 to 20 or more seconds *" taps twice to signal the
close of the interval. After he notes that the reagent has recorded his
guess, and has turned to his introspections, he records the color, num-
ber, and suit of the card and the number of the die-spot which condi-
tioned the form of the experiment (as, RsH i, for Red, Five of Hearts,
Die-spot I — i. e., held in Visual Impression). The control experiments
ran oflf in precisely the same form as the regular, except that the card
remained unknown until the reagent had recorded his guess.
Good experimental conditions*" were maintained: quiet, no con-
versation, regularity of procedure, etc. The reagent sat with his back
toward the experimenter, and in the experimental interval he closed his
eyes, "thought of nothing," and assumed a calm, receptive, quietly ex-
pectant state of mind ; he was cognizant of the method employed by the
experimenter and held himself ready to receive impressions in any sense
mode ; he was given all the time he needed to note down his introspec-
tions, which in tfie early series of the set ran the experiments at the rate
of one in 5-10 minutes, but later permitted a higher rate, one a minute
as a maximum. Experiments were not made after fatigue point had
been reached; a set of 10 series of 10 experiments each, 100 experi-
ments, taking the reagent three to five days (one week apart, and at the
same hour of the day) to complete.
The records were not compared by the reagent or the experimenter
before the set was complete**^ and but seldom after: the procedure
was '"without knowledge," and precautions were taken to avoid the rise
of any rumor (such as ''Our results show no telepathy") which might
influence those still engaged in the experiments.
Results.
Table XIII (on the verso page) gives (i) the number of the re-
agent, (2) the number of correct guesses upon (a) the whole card, (b)
i»« Vide, supra, p, 52,
iss For what are considered conditions essential to success, vide, Schmoll and
Mabire: Experiments in thought-transference (tr. from the French), Proceedings
S.P.R,, 1888, 5:205; also, Report of the American G>mmittee on Thought-Trans-
ference, June 15, 1886, Proceedings Am. S.P,R., Series i, 1:110-111; idem. May
1887, p. 261.
*»* Cf,, Gumey, Myers, and Podmore: Phantasms of the Living, vol. I, p. 33,
foot-note.
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GUESSING OF PLAYING-CASDS 55
the color, (c) the number of spots, (d) the suit, (3) the number of
guesses wholly wrong, and (4) the total number of experiments. The
"Gird Not Imaged" side of the table gives the data of the control ex-
periments, i. e., of guesses upon cards unknown to the experimenter.
Table XIV (on the recto page) gives the deviations from approx-
imate probability, and was derived from the data of Table XIII after the
latter was reduced to sets of 50 experiments.*** In Table XIII, for ex-
ample. Reagent i made 26 R guesses on color in 55 control experiments,
and 22 in 45 regular experiments ; reduction of the control and regular
experiments to 50 each makes the value of the R guesses 24 in each
case (disregarding decimals), which is a deviation of ~i from the "prob-
able number" 25. The deviations of guesses on Card, and Suit, and of
guesses Wholly Wrong, are made from the integral niunber nearest the
value of the "probable number," which in these cases is fractional ; i. e.,
on the Card it is made from i instead of from 1.25; on the Suit from
12 if minus, or 13 if plus, instead of from 12.5 ; etc."* This is the only
table in which the results of the different reagents may be compared
directly.
Table XV gives the totels per 1000; Table XVI gives (i) the per
cent of R cases (a) per 1000 experiments, and (6) the per cent for the
total, as well as (2) the per cent expected from theoretical probability;
and Table XVII gives the deviations from the probable per cent.
iw This reduced table (Table Xllla) may be seen in Appendix A.
^••The reader will readily recognize the fact that these deviations are only
approximate and, consequently, cannot be compared for slight differences. In the
redaction to sets of 50, the value found is an integer which may vary in value from
-0.5 to 404. Deviation is calculated from the integer. In no case, however, can
the neglected values exceed a deviation of ±0.5 in the cases of Colors or Numbers,
or ±1. in the cases of Suits or Wrong guesses, or ±0.75 in the case of Cards.
The justification for neglecting these fractional deviations lies in their small value
as compared with the deviations themselves, and in the increased clearness of the
table consequent upon the dispensing with decimals. The smaller differences, more-
over, are not significant in sets of 50 experiments; they reach significance only in
the averages, or in per cents calculated from the averages, of a number of sets, in
which statistical consideration we turn to the original unreduced data.
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56
THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE
TABLE XIII. NUMBER OF RIGHT CASES IN THE GUESSING OF PLAY-
ING-CARDS.
(Sets of 100 Experiments.)
A, Normal Persons (Students).
c:ai
'd Not Imaged
Card Imaged
Reagent
C:ard G)lor No.
Suit
W
Total
Card Color No.
Suit
W '
rotal
/.
4
26
6
16
28
55
3
22
7
II
21
45
2,
3
26
S
14
19
46
0
20
6
7
30
54
2-
2
36
5
19
10
47
2
28
5
12
24
53
4^
2
21
5
13
22
46
2
28
8
13
21
54
5.
2
25
6
10
25
54
I
17
3
10
27
46
6.
2
31
6
13
17
52
0
26
4
10
20
48
7.
I
18
3
12
29
48
2
29
3
13
23
52
8,
0
28
5
14
24
55
0
18
2
12
25
45
p.
0
23
3
10
18
44
I
24
4
14
29
56
10,
2
31
4
16
23
56
I
23
4
14
18
44
Totals
i8
265
48
137
215
S03
12
235
46
116
238
497
1st 1000
//.
I
25
8
14
20
51
2
25
8
12
18
49
12,
I
24
7
12
17
47
I
31
8
16
20
53
13*
2
21
7
8
29
53
I
17
4
7
28
47
14*
0
29
3
12
24
55
I
19
5
8
22
45
15-
I
24
4
10
17
43
0
29
5
16
26
57
j6.
I
23
4
14
25
50
I
29
6
15
19
50
17*
3
26
6
II
24
52
I
24
4
18
21
48
i8.
I
20
6
8
20
43
I
22
2
12
34
57
19*
2
21
8
14
16
42
2
28
7
13
26
58
20,
0
27
7
12
24
56
I
25
4
13
18
44
Totab
12
240
60
"5
216
492
II
249
53
130
232
508
2d 1000
21.
I
18
2
6
28
46
2
22
6
13
28
54
22,
0
26
I
II
IS
41
I
23
4
8
^Z
59
22*
0
23
I
IS
20
44
2
24
6
12
28
56
24-
0
27
7
12
18
47
I
28
6
16
22
53
25*
4
31
9
20
18
52
4
28
II
15
17
48
26.
0
28
I
19
22
51
4
25
9
13
21
49
27-
0
IS
I
9
27
42
2
31
8
18
21
58
28,
2
22
3
14
25
48
I
26
5
15
23
52
29*
0
21
2
13
22
44
0
31
5
8
22
56
so.
0
18
I
9
25
44
3
28
II
17
23
56
Totals
7
229
28
128
220
459
20
266
71
135
238
541
3d lOQO
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GUESSING OF PLAYING-CARDS
57
TABLE XIV. RIGHT CASES IN THE GUESSING OF PLAYING-CARDS.
DEVIATIONS FROM APPROXIMATE PROBABILITY.
A, Normal Persons (Students).
Card Not Imaged
Card Imaged
Card
Color
No.
Suit
W
Card
Color
No.
Suit
w
Probable
No.
Reagent
M5
n
5
ia.5
22.5
"5
as
5
12.5
22.5
1st 1000
/.
+3
-I
0
+2
+2
+2
-I
+3
0
0
2.
+2
+3
0
+2
-I
-I
-6
+1
-6
+5
J.
+1
+13
0
+7
-II
+1
+1
0
-I
0
^.
+1
-2
0
+1
+1
+1
+1
+2
0
-3
5.
+1
-2
+1
-3
0
0
-7
-2
-I
46
6.
+1
+5
+1
0
-6
-I
+2
-I
-a
-I
7.
0
-6
-2
0
+7
+1
+3
-2
0
0
«.
-I
0
0
0
0
-I
-5
-3
0
+5
p.
-I
+1
-2
-I
-2
0
-4
-I
0
+3
10,
+1
+3
-I
+1
-I
0
+1
0
+3
-2
2d 1000
II.
0
0
+3
+1
-2
+1
+1
+3
0
-4
12,
0
+1
+2
0
-4
0
+4
+3
+2
-3
13-
+1
-5
+2
-4
+4
0
-7
-I
-5
+7
H-
-I
+1
-2
-I
0
0
-4
+1
-3
4-1
15-
0
+3
0
0
-2
-I
0
-I
+1
0
i6.
0
-2
-I
+1
+2
0
+4
+1
+2
-3
17'
+2
0
+1
-I
0
0
0
-I
46
0
i8.
0
-2
+2
-3
0
0
-6
-3
-I
+7
19-
+1
0
+5
+4
-3
+1
-I
+1
-I
0
20.
-I
-I
+1
-I
-I
0
+3
0
+2
-2
3d 1000
21.
0
-5
-3
-5
+7
4-1
-5
4-1
0
+3
22,
-I
+7
-4
0
-4
0
-6
-2
-5
+5
^3'
-I
4-1
-4
+4
0
4-1
-4
0
-I
42
^4-
-I
+4
+2
0
-3
0
4-1
4-1
+2
-I
25-
+3
+5
+4
46
-5
+3
+4
46
+3
•4
26.
-I
42
-4
46
0
+3
4-1
+4
0
-I
^'
-I
-7
-4
-I
-K)
4-1
■¥2
4^
4^
-4
28,
4-1
-2
-2
42
+3
0
0
0
4-1
0
^.
-I
-I
-3
4^
+2
-I
+3
-I
-5
-2
30.
-I
-5
-4
-2
+5
4^
0
+5
4^
-I
Digitized by
Google
58
THOUGHT-TRANSFER£NCE
Reagent
TABLE XIII— Continued.
Card Not Imaged Card Imaged
Card Color No. Suit W Total Card Color No. Suit W Total
31-
0
14
3
7
22
38
2
36
7
20
23
62
3^'
5
25
8
17
25
51
6
26
10
20
20
49
33'
2
31
5
18
18
S2
2
31
5
19
17
48
34^
2
24
4
15
20
46
I
34
7
15
16
54
35-
I
24
3
IS
23
48
0
28
3
12
23
52
36,
I
28
7
14
15
46
2
31
5
18
23
54
37'
2
39
6
23
IS
S6
0
18
5
10
22
44
3S'
0
21
4
10
29
53
2
24
4
9
22
47
39-
0
19
2
ID
27
48
I
26
3
IS
25
52
40.
0
21
I
10
23
44
4
30
7
18
25
S6
Totals
13
246
43
139
217
482
20
284
56
156
216
S18
4th 1000
^.
I
31
4
II
18
52
3
24
9
10
20
48
^.
I
24
2
13
24
49
3
26
10
12
19
51
43'
2
31
4
12
17
48
0
25
4
13
24
52
44-
0
26
4
13
18
48
I
25
7
13
22
52
45'
I
23
6
10
22
48
0
30
3
16
20
52
46'
2
31
8
12
17
S3
2
20
4
12
26
47
47'
0
28
I
14
22
50
2
28
8
IS
17
SO
4B'
I
31
6
13
23
57
0
23
4
13
19
43
49-
I
23
7
10
16
43
5
29
12
19
25
57
SO-
I
24
3
9
23
48
I
28
5
13
21
52
Totals
ID
272
45
117
200
496
17
258
66
136
213
504
Sth 1000
51.
3
15
5
10
21
37
2
28
8
16
31
63
5^.
3
28
4
II
IS
43
2
30
8
20
24
57
53-
I
26
6
12
23
S3
I
24
5
II
19
47
54'
2
23
7
15
23
SO
I
23
4
13
24
50
55-
2
26
5
II
27
S6
I
17
2
9
26
44
56'
0
29
8
10
23
56
2
28
4
16
14
44
57-
2
18
5
6
25
46
3
23
7
IS
27
54
58'
I
26
9
II
17
48
I
22
5
12
27
52
59-
I
31
4
18
II
43
4
30
9
13
23
57
60.
I
30
5
14
22
56
2
23
6
13
19
44
Totals
16
252
58
118
207
488
19
248
58
138
234
512
6th 1000
Digitized by
Google
GUESSING OF PLAYING-CASDS 59
TABLE XIV— Continued.
CsLTd Not Imaged
Card Imaged
Card
Color
No.
Suit
W
Card
Color
No.
Suit
W
Probable
No.
x^5
as
5
xa.5
aa.5
1.35
as
S
xa.S
aa-S
^
Reagent
4th 1000
31-
-I
-7
-I
-3
^
+1
+4
+1
-^3
-3
^.
+4
0
+3
+4
+2
+5
+2
+5
+7
-2
33-
+1
+5
0
+4
-5
+1
+7
o
+7
-^
34^
+1
+1
-I
+3
0
0
^
+1
+1
-7
35-
0
o
-^
+3
+1
-I
-hi
-2
0
0
36.
0
+5
+3
+3
-6
+1
+4
0
+4
-I
37.
+1
+10
0
4«
-9
-I
-s
+1
-I
42
38.
-I
-5
-I
-3
+4
+1
+1
-I
-2
0
39'
-I
-5
-3
-a
+5
0
0
-2
+1
4-1
40.
-I
-I
-4
-I
+3
+3
•hi
+1
t3
O
5th 1000
41-
0
+5
-I
-I
-5
•hi
0
+4
-a
-I
4^.
0
-I
-3
0
+1
+3
0
+5
o
-3
43.
+1
+7
-I
0
-4
-I
-I
-I
0
0
44-
-I
+2
-I
+1
-3
0
-I
+2
o
-I
45'
0
-I
+1
-3
0
-I
H
-^
42
-3
46.
+1
+4
+3
-I
-6
+1
-4
-I
0
+5
47.
-I
t3
-4
+1
o
+1
^
+3
-^
-5
48.
o
-hi
0
-I
-a
-I
+3
o
42
0
49-
o
+3
+3
0
-3
+3
0
4€
+4
o
50.
0
0
-a
-3
+1
0
+2
o
0
-a
6th 1000 51-
+3
-5
42
4-1
+5
4-1
-3
4-1
0
4^
5^.
42
4«
0
0
-5
4-1
4-1
4«
+5
-I
53-
o
0
4-1
-I
0
0
4-1
O
0
-«
54.
4-1
-2
42
42
o
O
-2
-I
0
+1
55-
4-1
-2
-I
-2
4-1
0
-6
-3
-«
+7
56.
-I
4-1
42
-3
-I
4-1
+7
o
+S
-6
57-
4-1
-5
0
-5
+4
4«
-4
4-1
4-1
4«
58.
0
42
+4
-I
-4
0
-4
O
0
+3
59.
0
4-1 1
0
4«
-9
+3
4-1
+3
-I
-2
60,
0
42
-I
0
-2
4-1
4-1
42
42
0
Digitized by
Google
60
THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE
TABLE XIII— Continued.
Card Not Imaged Card Imaged
Reagent
Card Color No.
Suit
W
Total
Card Color No.
Suit
W 1
rotal
6j,
I
23
5
13
18
45
0
24
0
13
31
55
62.
I
26
2
II
17
43
0
33
5
10
22
57
63^
2
24
6
15
20
46
4
27
6
20
25
54
64^
6
30
9
17
18
49
3
27
7
14
24
51
65^
2
26
7
13
26
55
I
22
3
10
21
4S
66.
3
27
9
II
26
53
3
23
ID
14
19
47
67.
2
28
6
16
18
48
0
19
4
13
29
5^
68.
2
23
7
9
19
46
2
29
5
16
24
54
69^
2
24
3
15
23
48
2
27
5
13
23
52
TO,
2
27
8
13
23
53
2
17
5
10
27
47
Totals
23
258
62
133
208
486
17
248
50
133
245
514
7th 1000
71.
3
30
3
16
30
60
I
17
4
II
22
4f>
7-?.
2
20
5
12
23
45
0
27
3
9
27
5S
rs-
I
24
4
16
16
42
I
23
7
10
30
58
74-
2
21
4
II
13
36
0
37
3
19
25
64
75-
0
3;
9
14
18
55
2
21
5
13
22
45
76.
3
28
ID
13
19
50
I
25
4
12
23
50
77^
I
33
6
15
21
57
2
15
6
8
24
43
7S,
2
32
4
20
25
59
4
19
6
12
21
41
79^
0
16
5
9
31
50
2
26
3
13
23
50
80.
0
27
3
II
21
50
0
26
3
14
21
SO
Totab
14
262
53
137
217
504
13
236
44
121
238
496
8th 1000
8j.
I
21
3
9
30
52
25
4
12
20
48
82.
0
23
3
15
17
43
30
4
15
26
57
S3^
2
25
5
13
22
48
24
6
12
24
5»
84^
2
28
8
12
17
50
29
6
14
19
50
^5.
I
18
4
9
30
50
26
5
II
20
50
86.
I
33
4
14
18
53
28
6
16
16
47
S7^
0
18
3
6
17
38
28
7
13
30
62
88.
2
3^
4
IS
19
56
0
20
2
II
24
44
89^
0
29
4
14
16
47
2
24
3
II
28
53
90.
I
24
6
13
30
57
I
21
6
9
17
43
Totals
10
255
44
120
216
494
12
255
49
124
224
506
gthiooo
Digitized by
Google
GUESSING OF playing<:asds 61
TABLE XIV— Continued
Card Not Imaged
Card Imaged
Card
Color
No.
Suit
W
Card
Color
No.
Suit
W
Probable
No.
Reagent
1.25
as
5
Z2.5
22.5
1^5
as
5
12.5
22.5
7th 1000
6i.
0
+1
+1
+1
-2
-I
-3
-5
0
+5
62.
0
+5
-3
0
-2
-I
+4
-I
-3
-3
63-
+1
+1
+2
+3
0
+3
-K)
+1
46
0
64-
+5
^
+4
+4
-4
+2
+1
+2
+1
+1
65^
+1
-I
+1
0
+1
0
-I
-2
-I
0
66.
+2
0
+3
-2
+2
+2
-I
46
42
-2
67.
+1
+4
+1
+4
-3
-I
-7
-I
0
+5
68.
+1
0
+3
-2
-I
+1
+2
0
+2
0
69-
+1
0
-2
+3
+1
+1
+1
0
0
0
TO.
+1
0
+3
0
0
+1
-7
0
-I
46
8th 1000
71.
+1
0
-3
0
+2
0
-4
0
+1
+5
72.
+1
-3
+1
0
+3
-I
0
-2
-4
42
73.
0
+4
0
46
-3
0
-5
+1
-3
+3
74'
+3
+4
+1
+2
-4
-I
+4
-3
+2
-2
75'
-I
+3
+3
0
-6
+1
-2
+1
4-1
+1
76.
+2
+3
+5
0
-3
0
0
-I
0
0
77'
0
+4
0
0
-4
+1
-8
+2
-3
+5
7S.
+1
+2
-2
+4
-I
+4
-2
+2
+2
+3
79.
-I
-9
0
-3
+8
+1
+1
-2
0
0
80.
-I
+2
-2
-I
-I
-I
+1
-2
+1
-I
9th 1000 81. o -5 -2 -3 46 o +1
82.
-I
42
-2
+4
-2
0
-Hi
-I
0
0
83.
+1
+1
0
-HI
0
0
-2
4-1
0
0
S4.
+1
+3
+3
0
-5
0
+4
■l-I
+1
-3
S5'
0
-7
-I
-3
+7
0
+1
0
-I
-2
86.
0
46
-I
0
-5
42
+5
■n
+4
-5
87.
-I
-I
-I
-4
0
0
-2
■n
-2
+1
88.
4-1
+7
-I
0
-5
-I
-2
-3
0
+4
89.
-I
46
-I
42
-5
4-1
-2
-2
-2
+3
90. O -4 O -I 4-3 O -I 42
Digitized by
Google
62
THOUGHT-TSANSFERENCB
TABLE XIII— Continued.
Card Not Imaged
Card Imaged
Reagent
Card Color No.
Suit
W
Total
Card Color No.
Suit
W Total
P/.
3
22
4
12
18
42
I
35
3
20
21
58
P^.
I
21
5
II
26
48
I
21
8
12
25
52
Pi.
3
21
5
8
18
41
I
29
5
IS
28
59
94.
I
M
4
13
19
44
0
33
I
15
^
56
95.
I
15
5
9
22
40
I
25
7
19
30
60
96.
I
M
5
7
31
55
0
26
2
14
18
45
97.
2
24
3
II
26
50
4
24
4
13
26
50
98.
I
i6
4
II
22
40
2
27
6
II
31
60
99.
3
21
6
16
23
46
2
28
5
17
24
54
100.
3
34
6
10
28
55
0
29
4
19
14
45
Totols
i8
212
47
106
233
461
12
277
45
155
240
539
lothiooo
B, "Psychici.-*
/.
0
^
8
8
23
51
2
26
5
13
20
49
2.
0
M
2
12
28
54
2
22
7
10
20
46
3.
3
ap
6
15
18
49
4
^
6
14
24
51
4.
I
21
3
II
20
43
2
30
8
13
22
57
5.
0
M
2
16
20
46
2
31
4
19
22
54
Totals
4
121
21
62
109
243
12
136
30
69
106
257
6.
I
20
2
13
17
37
2
25
6
9
35
63
7.
3
29
8
18
22
55
0
28
4
14
15
45
8.
2
22
6
17
22
47
3
31
6
15
20
53
9.
0
17
2
6
19
38
0
28
6
16
28
62
10.
I
23
4
M
25
50
I
29
5
15
18
50
Totals
7
III
22
68
105
227
6
141
27
69
116
273
Grand
Totals
II
232
43
130
214
470
18
277
57
138
224
530
C. G>raeal Rcflection.t
/.
2
22
6
12
24
49
22
39
33
24
12
51
//.
1
20
9
II
19
45
33
46
37
38
9
55
III.
0
29
3
16
30
61
20
29
27
22
8
39
IV.
3
17
8
II
21
41
28
55
36
39
4
59
V.
I
30
6
14
15
49
9
33
19
16
15
51
Totals
7
p. "5
118
3a
64
109
24s
112
202
152
139
48
255
*V%de,
iViiU,
p. 121
.
Digitized by
Google
GUESSING OF PLAYING-CARDS 63
TABLE XIV— Continued.
Card Not Imaged
Card Imaged
Card
Color
No.
Suit
W
Card
Color
No.
Suit
W
Probable No.
1^5
as
5
ia*5
M.5
1^5
•5
5
ia*5
22.5
Reagent
loth 1000 9/.
+1
+1
0
+1
-I
0
+5
-2
+4
-4
9^.
0
-3
0
-I
+4
0
-5
+3
0
+1
93-
+3
+1
+1
-2
0
0
0
-I
0
+1
94'
0
+2
0
+2
0
-I
+4
-4
0
-I
95-
0
-6
+1
-I
+5
0
-4
+1
+3
+2
96.
0
-3
0
-6
+5
-I
+4
-3
+3
-2
97'
+1
-I
-2
-I
+3
+3
-I
-I
0
+3
98.
0
-5
0
+1
+5
+1
-2
0
-3
+3
99. +2 -2 +2 +4 +2 +1 +1 0+3
100. +2-30-3+2 -I +7 -I 4S
B, "Psychics."
/.
-I
-2
+3
-4
0
+1
+2
0
0
-2
2,
-I
-3
-3
-I
+3
+1
-I
+3
-I
0
3-
42
+5
+1
+2
-4
+3
+1
+1
+1
+1
4'
0
-I
-2
0
0
+1
+1
+2
-I
-3
-I +1 -3 +4 o +1 +4 -I +5
6,
0
42
-2
+5
0
+1
-5
0
-5
+5
7.
+2
+1
+2
+3
-2
-I
4€
-I
+3
-5
8.
+1
-2
+1
+5
0
+2
+4
+1
+1
-3
9.
-I
-3
-2
-4
+2
-I
-a
0
0
0
10.
0
-2
-I
+1
+2
0
+4
0
42
-4
C. Corneal Reflection.
/.
0
-3
+5
0
-I
+^
+17
+^
422
-14
//.
+1
-3
+1
0
+1
421
4-13
^
+11
-10
///.
-I
-I
-3
0
+2
+«5
+12
+30
+15
-12
IV.
■>3
-4
+5
0
+3
433
+22
4^
420
-19
V.
0
+6
+1
+1
-7
+8
+7
+14
+3
-7
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64
THOUGHT-TKANSFESENCE
TABLE XV.
Totals (per 1000).
Card
Not Imaged
Card Imaged
Students
Card Color
No.
Suit
W
Total
Card Color
No.
Suit
W '
Total
1st 1000
i8
265
48
137
215
503
12
235
46
116
238
497
2d 1000
12
240
60
"5
216
492
II
249
53
130
232
508
3d 1000
7
229
28
128
220
459
20
266
71
135
238
541
4th 1000
13
246
43
139
217
482
20
284
56
156
216
518
5th 1000
10
272
45
117
200
496
17
258
66
136
213
504
6th 1000
i6
252
58
118
207
488
19
248
58
138
234
512
7th 1000
23
258
62
133
208
486
17
248
50
133
245
514
8th 1000
14
262
53
137
217
504
13
236
44
121
238
496
9th 1000
10
255
44
120
216
494
12
255
49
124
224
506
lothiooo
i8
212
47
108
233
461
12
277
45
155
240
539
Totals
141 2491 488 1252 2149 4865 153 2556 538 1344 2318 5135
Psychics 11 232 43 130 214 470 18 277 57 138 224 530
TABLE XVI.
Per Cent (per 1000).
Card
Not Imaged
Card Imaged
Students
Card
Color
No.
Suit
W
Card
Color
No.
Suit
W
1st 1000
3.58
52.7
9.5
27.2
42.7
2.41
47.3
9J2
23.3
47.9
2d 1000
244
48.8
12.2
23A
43.9
2.16
49.0
104
25.6
45.6
3d 1000
1.52
49.8
6.1
27.9
47.9
3-70
49.2
13.1
25.0
44.0
4th 1000
2.70
51.0
8.9
28.8
45.0
3.86
54.8
10.8
30.1
41.7
5th 1000
2.02
54.8
9.1
23.6
40.3
3.37
51^
13.1
27.0
42.2
6th 1000
3.28
51.6
11.9
24^
42.4
3.71
48.4
11.3
27.0
45.7
7th 1000
4.73
53.1
12.7
27.3
42.8
3.30
48.2
9.7
25.8
47^
8th 1000
2.78
51.9
10.5
27.1
43.1
2.62
47.5
8.9
24.3
48X)
9th 1000
2.03
51.6
8.9
24.3
43.7
2.37
504
9.7
24.5
44.3
lothiooo
3-90
46.0
10.2
234
50.6
2.23
514
a9
28.8
44.5
Totals
2.90
51.2
lO.O
25.8
44.1
2.98
49.7
10.5
26.2
45.1
Prob.
2.50
50.0
10.0
25.0
45.0
2.50
50.0
10.0
25.0
45.0
Psychics
2.34
49.3
9.1
27.6
45.5
3.40
52.3
10.8
26.0
42.3
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GUESSING OP PLAYING-CASDS 65
TABLE XVII.
Deviations of per cents (per looo) from the Probable per cent
Card
Not
Imaged
Card In
laged
Card
G)lor
No.
Suit
W
Card
Color
No.
Suit
W
Probmble %
. a-50
50
zo
as
45
a.50
50
zo
25
45
Students
1st 1000
+1.08
+2.7
-0.5
+2.2
-2.3
-0.09
-^7
-0.8
-17
+2.9
2d 1000
-ao6
-1.2
+2.2
-1.6
-I.I
-0.34
-I.O
40.4
40.6
40.6
3d 1000
-0.98
-0.2
-3.9
+2.9
+2.9
+1.20
-0.8
+3.1
0.0
-1.0
4th 1000
40.20
4-1.0
-I.I
+3.8
0.0
+1.36
+4.8
40.8
+5.1
-3.3
5th 1000
-048
+4.8
-0.9
-14
-4-7
40.87
+1.2
+3.1
42.0
-2.8
6th 1000
40.78
+1.6
+1.9
-0.8
-2.6
+1.21
-1.6
+1.3
+3.0
^•7
7th 1000
+2.23
+3.1
+27
+3.3
-2.2
40.80
-1.8
-0.3
+0.8
+2.3
8th 1000
+0.28
+1.9
+0.5
+2.1
-1.9
40.I2
-2.5
-I.I
-07
+3.0
9th 1000
-0.47
+1.6
-I.l
-0.7
-1.3
-0.13
404
-0.3
-0.5
-07
loth 1000
4-140
-4.0
+0.2
-1.6
+4.6
-0.27
+14
-I.I
+3.8
-0.5
Totals
4040
+1.2
0.0
40.8
-0.9
40.48
-0.3
•H>.S
+1.2
40.I
Psychics
-0.16
-0.7
-0.9
+2.6
-K).S
+0.90
+2.3
40.8
+1.0
-2.7
Inspection of the data in Table XIII reveals great variation among
the corresponding entries, which, of course, except in sets in which the
die cast odd and even equally often, cannot be directly compared; and
although this variation is slightly decreased by the reduction of each of
the two parts of a set to a set of even 50 experiments, as is done in Ta-
ble XI I la (in Appendix A), from which the deviations in Table
XIV are calculated, the amount of variation in the "Total" column,
which results from pure chance, warns us that we shall have to exercise
g^eat care in identifying "significant" deviations. Were we to disre-
gard for a moment the possibility of a faculty of "lucidity" or clairvoy-
ance, which might disturb apparently ostensibly chance results, and,
with Richet,*" consider guessing upon unknown cards a true "control"
experiment yielding purely chance results, the deviations in Table XIV
under "Cjrd Not Imaged" stand before us as cases of chance deviation,
beyond which "significant" values must vary if they are to be identified
in the Table.
Glancing at the "Card Imaged" deviations in Table XIV, in search
for "significant" values, our eye rests for a moment at Set /, of the ist
1000 upon the +3 under "Number," but upon noting under "Number" on
the "Card Not Imaged" side of the table the deviation of +3 (Set //, 2d
^^'f Revue Philosophique, 1884, 18:617.
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66 THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE
looo) and +5 (Set if, 2d 1000), we search for the largest chance devia-
tion under Number, and find it to be ±15, of which we note there are six
cases in the table ; our "significant" deviation must be higher. We find
46 several times (Sets ^5, 4p, and 66), but none higher imtil the last sec-
tion (C) of the table is reached, where we see +14 to +30. Evidently we
cannot be quite satisfied with the +6; especially since it occurs in only
3% of the sets. Searching thus for significant deviations, we find the
largest deviations to be as follows :
TABLE XVIII.
Largest deviations in Table XIV.
Card Not Imaged Card Imaged
Card Color No. Suit W Card Color Na Suit W
+5 +13 +5 4« -n +5 +7 -^^ ■* -7
-I -9 -4 -6 49 -I -« -5 -6 +7
In every case but one the positive deviations of the R guesses on the
cards and the negative deviation of the wholly wrong guesses (W) are
as large on the "Card Not Imaged" side of this table as upon the "Card
Imaged" side.
Evidently, if we have any "significant" deviations in the first 100
Sets of Table XIV they are not to be discriminated from chance devia-
tions by merely "inspecting" the table. We shall have to resort to sta-
tistical analysis.
Analysis op Results.
Suppose, for the sake of illustrating our method, some influence
working for R cases has been present in our experiments, but was too
slight to be revealed in Table XIV because the deviations incorporat-
ing it do not exceed some deviations known to be caused by chance
alone — suppose this influence present, but masked by the large varia-
tions of chance, how can it be detected? It might be discovered by sub-
jecting the data to various analyses which our method of experimenta-
tion permits, or to certain mathematical treatment already co'nunon in
scientific investigation.
Let us give our attention first to the various analyses.
If the various ways of "imaging" the card have a varying effect
upon the influence, the R cases (correct judgments or guesses) would
fall disproportionately upon one or two of the die-spots, which, in the ex-
periments, determined these favorable conditions ; if the influence is ac-
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CyESSING OF PLAYING-CAIDS 67
companied by increased certainty in the consciousness of the reagent,
R cases would fall more frequently upon the Highly Graded guesse3
than upon the others ; if the distance between experimenter and reagent,
or if the length of the interval of impression, is a factor of which the
influence is a function, and these factors were varied in experimenta-
tion, appropriate analyses would show increased frequency of R cases
upon the optimal distance or time ; etc. In all these analyses the result
would yield a deviation from the probable value larger than the devia-
tions in Table XIV, and, perhaps, sufficiently large to be considered de-
cisive.
The increasing feebleness of such an influence which might be
smothered in the tables of totals or deviations and yet which might be
detected by analysis would correspond to the increase in the number of
experiments we choose to inspect, provided the influence is not confined
to one or two sets, but is somewhat general: the greater the aggregate
number of experiments under consideration, the more sensitive is our
system of measurement, and the slighter may the influence be which can
be decisively revealed.
Illustration,
To illustrate, we might inspect the deviations in the last set (V)
in Table XIV. As many wholly wrong guesses were made in the "Card
Imaged" experiments as in the "Card Not Imaged", and both, accord-
ing to Table XIV, may be chance deviations. The deviations under
Color (+7) and Suit »(+3) are surpassed by chance deviations (+13 and
+8) ; the deviation under Card (+8) is a little greater than that made by
chance (+5). The deviation under Number alone (+14) greatly exceeds
any of our chance deviations (+5). The apparently significant devia-
tions then are limited to Card and Number. Are these really significant?
And do the others mask some positive influence working for R cases ?
If we distribute the R cases (correct judgments or guesses) over
the die-spots which determined the conditions of the respective experi-
ments in this set, and express their frequency in per cent, we get Table
XIX. Table XX shows the deviations:
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70 THOUGHT-TSANSFERENCE
ing for unequal distribution whether thought-transferencs was a func-
tion of the imagery in the mind of the experimenter.
Table XXIII shows the distribution of R cases in 98 sets,^** or 9800
experiments, over the die-spots. Table XXIV gives the per cents, and
Table XXV the deviations of the latter from the probable per cents.
TABLE XXni.
Number of R cases distributed over the die-spots (9800 Experiments).
Card Not Imaged.
Card Imaged.
Die-
R Cases W Total
Die- R Cases W Total
Spot
Card Color No. Suit
Spot Card Color No. Suit
2
47 805 162 394 703 1581
/ 44 838 162 439 765 1681
4
54 819 167 4" 656 1548
3 50 826 188 430 762 1682
6
38 813 146 4^4 751 1636
5 54 840 172 443 747 1672
-0.1 -04
+1.1
40.5
404
-0.9 +u
40.6
+0.3
40.S
•h).2 +0.3
+I.S
-0.3
404
TABLE XXIV.
Per Cent.
Prob.% 2.50 50 10 25 45 16.7 2.50 50 10 25 45 16.7
2 2.97 50.9 102 24.8 444 16.1 / 2.62 49.9 9.6 26.1 45-5 I7-I
4 349 53.0 10.8 26.6 424 15.8 3 2.97 49.1 1 1.2 25.6 45.3 17^
6 2,32 4^.7 8.9 25.9 45.9 16.7 5 3^3 50^ 10.3 26.5 44.7 17.1
TABLE XXV.
Deviations from Probability.
2 +047 40.9 +0.2 -0.2 -0.6 -0.6 / 40.I2
4 +0.99 +3.0 49^ +1.6 -2.6 -0.9 3 4047
6 -0.18 -0.3 -I.I 4o.9 40.9 0.0 5 40.73
It is evident from Table XXV that, after segregation, the devia-
tions are not noticeably magnified upon any one or two of the die-spots,
as they were in Table XX, and consequently, the supposed influence is
independent of the varying conditions of experimentation determined by
the die-spots. Visual, auditory, and combined imagery in which the
card is held in the experimenter's mind are equally indifferent to the in-
fluence. And since the positive deviations in the chance series (on the
even die-spots) under Card, Color, and Suit, exceed those in the regu-
lar experiments (on the odd die-spots), and the largest positive devia-
tion under Number (4-1.2) is not large (as may be seen by comparison
with the deviaticMis on the "Card Not Imaged" side of Table XVII ;**<>
is»Xwo sets, in which the experimenters failed to discriminate between the
even numbers, are omitted
1*0 Supra, p. 65.
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GUESSING OP PLAYING-CAKDS
71
the average of Sets 6, J, and S there, the aggregate number of experi-
ments of which is 1478, which is close enough to 1662 for comparison,
we find to be +1.7), the supposed influence remains completely masked.
Relation Between R Cases and Congmity of Imagery.
(fr) To determine whether our masked influence is dependent upon
a correspondence between the mode of imagery in which the impression
of a card comes into the consciousness of the reagent and the mode of
imagery id which the card is held in the mind of the experimenter, and,
if it is, to reveal the presence of this influence, we may, perhaps, limit
ourselves to a tabulation of the R cases on the '"Card," the most favor-
able case for thought-transference, according to the imagery of the re-
agent, over the die-spots which determined the experimenter's treatment
of the card. This tabulation gives the following table, in which V, K,
and 'A, stand for the modes of imagery, Visual, Kinasethetic, and Audi-
tory, and G stands for "pure guess" made without any determining im-
agery.
TABLE XXVI.
R Cases on the ''Card" according to the Imagery of the Reagent.
(100 sets of 100 experiments each.)
Card Not Imaged Card Imaged
K A G Total Die V K A
875. 50 / 35 69
8 14 4 S3 3 24 II 6
88558 5^89
Die
V
2
30
4
27
6
17
Totals
74
G
Total
7
47
10
51
10
SS
34
14 141
77 35
24
153
TABLE XXVII.
Per cent
2
6ojO
16.0
14.0
10.0
/
53^
12.8
19.2
14.9
4
50^
15.1
264
7.5
3
47X>
21.6
11.8
19.6
6
44.8
21.1
21. 1
13^
5
S0.9
14.5
164
i%a
Totals
52.5
17X)
20.6
9.9
S0.3
16.3
15.7
17.6
2
+7.5
4
-1.6
6
-77
TABLE XXVIII.
Deviations of per cent from per cent of total cases.
-1.0 -6.6 -Hxi / 42.9 -3.5 +3.5
-1.9 +5.8 -24 3 -3.3 +5.3 -3.9
+4.1 40.5 +3.3 5 +0.6 -1.8 40.7
-2.7
42.0
40.6
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74
THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE
unknown to the experimenter as when it is held vividly in his conscious-
ness. The distribution of the grades approximates the complete dis-
tribution. There is no relation here between an influence working for
successful guesses and the feeling of certainty that the guess stands a
better chance of being rig^t than a pure guess would stand.
Another tabulation can be made, however, which will test this rela-
tion further. Guesses given high grades (A or B) may be selected
from every set in which they are fotmd, and the R cases compared with
the R cases in a selection of as many neighboring guesses given with
low grades (D or Pure Guess). In order to make the selection of the
data in a purely mechanical way, and to avoid a disproportionate con-
tribution from any one or a few sets, the ntmiber of guesses of high
grade and of low grade selected from each set was limited to lo each,
chosen immediately after the 25th experiment of the set, when the re-
agent should be at his best, or from any part of the set to complete the
quota as nearly as the number of hig^y graded guesses in the set would
permit; in every case the nearest guess with a low grade (preference
given to 'Ture Guess") was selected. Sets in which no guesses were
given high grades were omitted.
The following table gives the number of R cases, number of Wrong
cases, and the number of experiments, for both the guesses graded Low
and the guesses graded High.
TABLE XXX.
R Cases in Guesses Graded Low and Graded High.
Graded Low.
Graded High.
Year
Card (
Color
No.
Suit
W
Total
Card
Color
No.
Suit
W
Tot
191^13
5
103
22
49
104
200
10
120
32
73
84
220
1913-14
3
89
17
58
95
19a
6
106
26
59
74
192
1914-15
8
no
24
62
no
229
13
III
29
63
108
229
1915-16
3
35
7
20
31
67
I
31
5
18
32
67
Totals
19
337
70
189
340
708
30
368
92
213
298
708
TABLE XXXI.
Per cent.
191^13
2^
46.8
10.0
22.3
47.3
4.55
54.5
14.5
33.2
38^
1913-14
1.56
46.3
8.9
30J2
49.5
3.12
55.2
13.5
30.7
3a6
1914-15
349
4ao
10.5
27.1
48.0
5.68
48.5
12.7
27.5
47.2
191S-16
4.88
52.2
104
29B
45.3
149
46.3
7.5
26.8
47.8
Totals
2.68
47.6
9.9
26.7
48.0
4.24
52.0
13.0
30.1
40.7
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GUESSING OF PLAYING-CABDS 75
TABLE XXXII.
Deviations.
Graded Low. Graded High.
Year Card Color No. Suit W Card Color No. Suit W
191J-13 -0.23 -3.3 ao -^7 +3.3 +3.05 +4.5 +4-5 +8^ -^-S
191J-14 -0.94 -3.7 -I.I +5.2 +4-5 "K>.^ +5-2 +3.5 +57 -6-4
1914-15 40.99 -3.0 "K>.S +3.1 +3.0 +3.1B -i.S +2.7 +3.5 +3^
1915-16 +1.98 +3.3 404 +4.8 -K>.3 -1.01 -3.7 -3.5 +1.8 +3.8
Totals 40.18 -3.4 -0.1 +1.7 +3.0 +I.S4 +3.0 +3.0 +S.I -4.3
The amounts of these deviations do not appear beyond chance varia-
tion when the number of cases is considered, since they can be dupli-
cated by averages of four entries in Table XIV under "Card Not Im-
aged"; but the consistency of the positive deviations appears signifi-
cant : in all cases, except four, the deviations of R cases under ''Grade
High'' are positive and are higher than the few correspcmding positive
deviations under ''Grade Low." To be sure that a supposed influence
for R cases is shown here in correlation with a feeling of certainty,
we must ascertain whether this consistency of positive deviations may
be fortuitous. Might it be matched by another sampling of an equal
number of R cases on "Grades Low"? The deviations of an additional
sampling are shown in
TABLE XXXIII.
Graded Low.
Year
Card Color No. Suit
W
Total
1913-13
-1.14 4-1.8 -14 -50
-M
330
1913-14
-1.98 +4.7 -4.3 0.0
-3.3
19a
1914-IS
40.I3 -3.8 0.0 -0.6
43.6
339
1915-16
-1.01 -0.7 +3.4 -I.I
+1.3
67
Totals -0.95 •H>.9 -1.3 -1.8 -04 708
So far as this table gives testimony, the apparent significance noted
above is increased. Further analysis, however, is competent to magnify
those deviations if they really signify the presence of an influence
wortdng for R cases. The supposed influence would be operative on
""Cards Imaged" alone and could be detected by re-tabulating all of the
R cases of the 708 guesses given with a high grade of certainty, in such
a way as to segregate the regular from the control experiments, as is
shown below :
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78 THOUGHT-TRANSFEEENCB
impression of a card or is making up his guess) is a function of R
cases we might expect by tabulating R cases according to length of
the interval to find a greater positive deviation in per cent of R cases
on the optimal interval. In 24 sets the interval was varied from 10 to
60 seconds for the eariy series, which enables us to distribute 42 R cases
on the "Card," when the "Card was Imaged/' over the following inter-
vals, in seconds.
TABLE XXXVIII.
Deviation in R Cases according to Time of Inqiression.
Interval (seconds) 10 15 20 30 40 60
R Cases 5 I 24 I 7 4
Number of experiments ^ aao 70 IQ50 50 610 a8o
Per Cent R 2.3 14 3.3 2.0 i.i 14
Deviations -02 -i.i -0.2 -0.5 -14 -i.i
The absence of positive deviations indicates that there was no in-
fluence for R cases operative in these experiments which was a ftmction
of the time of the critical interval."*
Test for Retarded Effect.
Another supposition deserves notice here before we begin the math-
ematical treatment of our data. A criticism which is often made claims
that our deviations may fail to show a telepathic influence because it is
tardy in its effect ; we might find it if we tabulated the coincidences be-
tween the card drawn and the succeeding instead of the contemporane-
ous guess."' Such a tabulation has been made from the data procured
in 191 3-14: 25 sets from the students and 10 sets from the "psychics.''
The following table of deviations, per 1000 experiments, is comparable
with Table XVII, and includes the deviations for the total number of
sets by students, as well as the deviations of the 2d succeeding guess
for the psychics.
^^* Apart from the variation in the length of the critical interval, the general
method demanded from 15 to 20 seconds, which was used in all other sets. Of 21
Reagents for whom the interval was varied, 3 preferred 10 seconds, 13 preferred 20
seconds, and 5 preferred 40 seconds. In Lodge's experiments, in the Tyrol, in
guessing of numbers on cards, the young ladies made as many as 10 or 12 guesses
in a minute (Survival of Man, p. 64). The Rawson drawings were perceived by
the percipient in 10 seconds {Proceedings S.P.R., 12:9-11).
^^* Cases of deferred successes have been reported in the literature : vide,
Proceedings S.P,R., 1892, 8:548.
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GUESSING OF PLAYING-CARDS 79
TABLE XXXIX.
Deviations of R Cases in Coincidences between card drawn—
And the First Succeeding Guess:
Card Not Imaged. Card Imaged.
R Cases W Tot. R Cases W Tot.
Card Color No. Suit Card Color No. Suit
Psychics -0.7 -1.8 -K).8 -14 +1.5 467 -0.3 -3.5 -14 -1.6+3.6 533
Students :
Men, 4th 1000.. -1.2 -0.6 -ag -0.3 +1.7 482 +1.7 -1.6 +2.7 +1.2 o 518
Women, 5th looo 40.5 -5.4 "^O-Q -16 +4^ 496 ■K).3 +14 -i.3 -o.^ o 504
2500 -04 -2.7 +0.3 -0.6 +2.6 1229 40.7 -0.6 -K).9 404 404 1271
And the Second Succeeding Guess :
Psychics +0.3 +1.8 -0.8 +4.1 -1.5 467 -<x6 -0.5 -2.5 +1.14-1.3 533
The deviations under "Card Imaged'' show no obvious advantage
over those in the other part of the table, or over comparable deviations
of R cases in coincidences between the card drawn and the preceding
guess, and between cards drawn in the different sets, which have been
found (see Table LIII, p. 129), nor is there significant augmentation of
positive deviations when the R cases are distributed over the respective
die-spots. There is no indication of an influence for R cases which is
tardy in its effect.
Statistical Treatment of Data by Use of Mathematical FoRMULiB.
The other method of dealing with the data involves the application
of mathematical formulae to the data in the aggregate or to results of
analysis, and leads to precision in the estimate of the significance of
deviations. The "Card Not Imaged" side of Tables XIV and XVII
furnishes chance deviations from the most probable number or the most
probable per cent which have been of service in comparing the deviations
in the regular experiments. But we have already found by analysis that
causes beyond chance might yield deviations no larger (as in C, Set V,
Table XI V),^** and we have occasionally passed by, in our analyses,
some positive deviations just a little larger than any chance deviations
in the tables (e. g., the 46.6 in the total under Suit, Table XXXVI).
Evidently our reliance upon extreme chance variations is unsatisfactory,
in a test for some influence beyond chance, especially when the influence
may conceivably be slight and our deviations relatively small.
The mathematical theory of probability furnishes several tests by
i*« Supra, p. 63.
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82 THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE
wcfind Y= 1.8955,
and V, the last term in the P-equation above, and *(y), the first term:
Y = .ooiii4
*(y) = .9927
P = . 993814;
whence we get 0.9938 for the probability that chance deviations will
not exceed this limit of 5.1%; or, to state the conclusion in another
way, we may expect in 10,000 sets of 518 guesses on suit, 62 chance
deviations greater than 5.1%. Since this value, then, lies within the
field of chance deviation, although the probability of its occurrence by
chance is fairly low, it cannot be accepted as a decisive indication of
some cause beyond chance which operated in favor of success in
guessing.
(2) Let us determine how large the deviation should have been
in order to indicate with scientific certainty that some cause in addition
to chance was operative.
To make an application of Bayes's Theorem, known as the Theo-
rem of Poisson,*** it may be determined with a probability of
VirJ.
dt
that deviations resulting from chance causes alone will lie within the
limit of
when
=wi
148 Vide, Wahrscheinlichkeitsrechnung, in Encyklopadie der mathematischen
Wissenschaftcn mit Einschluss ihrer Anwendungen, Bd. i, Teil II, S. 762; also
Scripture: Some psychological illustrations of the theorems of Bernoulli and Pois-
son, Am. Jr. Psychology, 1893-94. 6:431-432; and Todhunter: A History of the
Mathematical Theory of Probability. Cambridge, 1865, pp. 552-7.
It will be noticed that this formula differs from James Bernoulli's, which
was used above, in dispensing with the second term (Y) in the P equation. Since
we here assign to 7 the value of 3, the value of * (the first term) becomes
.9999779 (cf., Todhunter, op. cit., p. 553; or, Bertrand: Calcul dcs Probabilit^s,
Paris, 1889, p. 331), and the value of 1^, the omitted term, becomes negligible. For
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GUESSING OF PLAYING-CABDS 83
andy if we meet the requirement of a degree of accuracy usual in scien-
tific work by making
P = o.9999779,
when absolute certainty is
then, in the above formulae,
Y = 3.
Substituting, and performing the operations, we get
^ = ^5 log ^= 93975^—10
«==.75 log ^= 9^7506— 10
n = 518 colog n = 7-28567 — 10
Y = 3 log 2 = 0.J0103
36^5970—30
13.43985- 15 = log J^
k>g Y = 04771a
13.90697— 15 = log L
L= 0.08072.
The deviation, therefore, should have been as great as 0.0807, ^^
8.1%, in order to be satisfactory evidence for some cause in addition to
chance.
(3) Supposing that the deviation of +5.1% could be maintained in
continuing the experiments, let us determine how many experiments
example, with this assigned value of y, and with all the other values in the pre-
ceding problem remaining unchanged, the value of V becomes .000004996, instead
of .001114, which was found when Y = 1.8955. The value of Y varies inversely
with Vn and with "^ pq, and both of these factors are given various values in our
respective problems. It remains, therefore, to show the limits, in each of these
cases, within which the Y value varies, in order to demonstrate that it is negligible :
li pq = .25, and n = 518, Y = .000004996
n = 58, V = .000014998
n = 4662, Y = .000001665
If li = 518, and p = .25, pq = .1875, ^ = .000064996
P'=-S» PQ = '25f Y = .0000043315
p = .02S, pq^. 024375, Y = .000013872
If n = 58, and p = .025, pq^ .024375, ^ = .000041616
This last value of W is the largest it can have in our use of the formula, and it
is limited to the cases on the Whole Card (p -= .025) in sets of 50.
The effect of dropping Y, then, is that, for whatever value we are determin-
ing, the probability is slightly greater than the value of *, (.9999779).
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84 THOUGHT-TRANSFEIENCE
should constitute the set in order to increase the probability to scientific
certainty that the deviation was not caused by chance alone.
By reversing Bayes's Theorem,"* we can determine with a ccr-
tainty of
"^r-''*
that the number of experiments must be
_ 2rW.
» ji-;
and, if we demand that
P = 0.9999779,
then
Y = 3
and
Substituting, and performing the operations, we get
p =.25 colog d = 1.29243
q =75
colog 52 = 2.58486
5* = .051
log p - 9.39794-10
log q = 9.87506 — 10
log 18 = 1.25527
log n =23.11313 — 20
n = 1297.6.
If, therefore, the deviation of +5.1% were maintained in the guess-
ing of suit, and the number of experiments were increased from 518 to
1298. the evidence for a cause in addition to chance, operative for suc-
cess in guessing, would be satisfactory.
In like manner the largest positive deviations in the tables of results
might be inspected and their reliabilities as evidence for an extra-chance
cause determined. It will suffice, however, if (a) the largest deviations
m the "Card Imaged" part of Table XVII ^'^ are portrayed in tabular
view with the limit of chance deviation which they should equal or ex-
"• Vide, Scripture: Am. Jr, Psychology, 1893-94, 6:431-^
«o Supra, p. 65.
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GUESSING OF PLAYING-CASDS 85
ceed in order to be trustworthy indications of an extra-chance cause;
and (b) reference tables and corresponding charts are provided, which
give the limits of chance deviation for sets varying in number of experi-
ments, in order to facilitate an estimate of the value of any deviation in
the tables.
In both cases we asstmie a scientific standard of certainty by
putting
P = 0.9099779,
when absolute certainty is p
X I J
and we use again the formula for the limit of chance deviation which
we have employed in the illustrations above : ^'^
in which, for the stated standard of certainty.
*■! Although there are certain restrictions to the application of this formula,
such as when n (the number of experiments) is small, or when p is very small,
its use is peculiarly applicable to the type of data with which we are dealing, and
it is not unsupported by approved statistical methods already used in the field of
psychical research. E. g., in his "Analysis of Mrs. Verrall's Card Experiments"
(Proceedings S. P, R., 1895, " : 193-7) Mr. C. P. Sanger used the following formula
for the limit of chance deviation from the probable number of occurrences :
^ = 3V2(i— Q)mQ,
m which
Q = the probability of occurrences,
m = the number of experiments ;
and it reduces to our formula for the limit of chance deviation from the prob"
ability of occurrence:
in which
P = probability of occurrence,
n = number of experiments,
as follows:
ii: = 3V2(i— Q)ffio;
changing notation,
Q = P,
I — 0 = 9,
ffi = n;
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86 THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE
The following table displays (a) the probable per cent of R cases,
(b) the largest per cent of R cases made in the "Card Imaged" experi-
ments/" (c) the largest deviations from probability,"* (d) the calcu-
lated limit of chance deviation/*^ (e) the ratio of deviation to limit l^\
rcwritiiig,
and reducing to the per cent form,
Its relation to other customary formula may be seen by considering Yule's "prac-
tical" limit in terms of the "Standard Error" (An Introduction to the Theory of
Statistics, 3d ed, pp. 266-7) :
J?
Our limit is definitely greater :
But of his limit Yule says : "We know roughly that the great bulk at least of the
fluctuations of sampling lie within a range of three times the standard-deviation;
and if an observed difference from a theoretical result greatly exceeds these limits
it cannot be ascribed to a fluctuation of simple sampling: it may therefore be sig-
nificant" (p. 266) ; and in applying it to the results of 49,152 throws of a die, he
says, 'The deviation observed is 5.1 times the standard error, and, practically
speaking, could not occur as a fluctuation of simple sampling. It may perhaps in-
dicate a slight bias in the dice" (p. 267). And if a table of values of the Prob-
ability Integral (as in Davenport: Statistical Methods, 3d ed, pp. 1 19-125) is con-
sulted, it will be found that for the limit of +3 a
^ = 0.99865;
which permits about 135 cases of chance deviation beyond the limit in 100,000
sets, while our limit (L) with a probability of
P = 0.9999779,
permits but 2 cases.
"« From Table XVI, supra, p. 64.
iw From Table XVII, supra, p. 65.
^ Cf„ Table XU, infra, p. 89.
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GUESSING OF PLAYING-CABDS 87
(/) the ratio of deviation to the "Standard Error" |-^|*" and (g) the
calculated probability of the given deviation as the limit of chance
deviation (P) : *••
TABLE XL.
The Highest Values in the Results of Card-Guessing Compared with Standard
Theoretical Values.
Card Color No. Suit
(a) Probable per cent of R cases 2.5 50.0 10.0 25.0
(b) Largest per cent of R cases 3.86 54.8 13.1 30.1
(f) Largest deviations (x),: 1.36 4.8 3.1 5.1
(d)L^Z^ a.96 9.5 5.7 8.2
X
(e) — 0460 0.505 0.544 0.622
X
{/) ~ 1.950 2.141 2.307 2.637
(g) P 0.9474 0.9839 0.9895 0.9959
A glance at the y- values shows that the largest deviations in our
sets of about 500 guesses on cards, when the card was held in the mind
of the experimenter, range from but 46% to 62.2% of the limit of
X X
*»• The ratio — is derived from f''
— «-4— — ^2X3-^ — 4.24^.
tf L L L
1/2X3
^••The probability of the deviation is taken from Davenport's Table of
Values of the Probability Integral Corresponding to Values of x/o {op. cit,
pp. 119 ff.), which assumes a "normal" distribution (t. e., when p'=^q), and,
consequently, is subject to a slight error when applied to the values in the table,
other than under Color, which tends to raise the probability; for example, by
Bernoulli's Theorem we found (supra, p. 82) for the deviation 5.1, under Suit,
whfle in the table it is
a difference of
^ = 0.9959,
+ 0.0021.
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88 THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE
chance deviation ; and the P values also show that from 4 to 53 out of
every 1000 chance deviations may be expected to exceed our highest em-
pirical deviations, when sets of 500 guesses are considered.
The other deviations, in the sets of 50, and in the totals of 5000,
found in Tables XIV and XVII,"' may be compared with the following
tables and charts *** for their evaluation.
Table XLI and Plate III portray in per cent the limits of chance
deviation, hence, the minimal significant deviations from the most prob-
able per cent of R cases, for sets of 50 to 10,000 experiments; and
Table XLII ^^* and Plate IV show the same facts, with smaller grada-
tions in number of experiments, for sets of 50 to 1000.
Tables XLIa and XLIIa give the corresponding lowest significant
per cents of R cases for sets of the same sizes.
The curves are smoothed and the least probable and most probable
per cents of R cases, due to chance alone, may be read or estimated,
for a set of any number of experiments, between the extremes listed in
the tables, from the figures on the left margin. The number of experi-
ments in the set is shown at the bottom of the plate. On Plate IV, for
example, (i) if one wishes to learn whether 16% R cases in a set of
250 guesses on number is significant of thought-transference, the point
coordinate with 16 on the margin and 250 at the bottom may be located,
and found to lie within the field of chance deviation; (2) if he wishes
to know how large it should be to be significant, the point in the limit-
ing curve above 2^0 will be found to be coordinate with the desired
value in per cent on the left margin — about 18% ; and (3) if he wishes
to know how many experiments to perform in order that 16% R cases
may be decisive, the 16% ordinate may be followed to its point of inter-
section with the limiting curve, and at the bottom of the plate the re-
quired number of experiments may be read off or estimated — about 480.
The base-line for each characteristic of the card shows the probability
"T Supra, pp. 57-63, 65.
*" Several purposes besides our immediate interest are served by these
tables and charts: They may be found of value by others who desire to engage
in further investigation of thought-transference; and they illustrate very clearly
the adequacy of scientific procedure to search wout and identify even a slight cause
in addition to chance by carrying out the experiments to a sufficiently great num-
ber. The layman will not feel so hopeless in the face of slight deviations, when
he has reason to believe them significant, if he can see from this illustration that
the limit of chance deviation is lowered directly with the square root of the
number of experiments in carrying further the investigation.
!»• Infra, p. 90.
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GUESSING OF PLAYING-CABDS
89
of a single guess upon that characteristic (e. g., J0% for Number, 23%
for Suit) ; which is ako the most probable per cent for any number of
guesses.
It is doubtless evident that the relation of any deviation in Tables
XIV ^•^ and XVII to its chance-limit may be found by locating the size
of the set at the bottom of the plate, counting upward from the proper
base-line, and noting the position of the point found with reference to
the accompan)ring limiting curve. If it lies above the limiting curve it
is significant.
TABLE XLI.
Minimal Significant Deviations.
(In Per Cent) L = ±y J^
Number of
experiments Card Color Number Suit
inset. Probable %.. 2.50 50.0 10.0 25.0
50* 9.37 30.0 18.0 26.0
100 6.63 21.2 12.7 18.4
5oot 2.96 9.5 57 8.2
1000 2.09 6.7 4.0 5.8
i6oot 1.66 5.3 3.2 4^
2000 1.48 4.7 2.8 4.1
3000 1.21 3.9 2.3 3.3
5ooo§ 0.94 3.0 1.8 2.6
loooo 0.66 2.1 1.3 1.8
♦Deviations comparable with those in Table XIV after the latter are multi-
plied by 2 ; or the former are divided by 2 (As,
4.96 15.0 9.0 13.0).
tComparable with Table XVII, without reduction.
{Comparable with Table XXV.
§Comparable with "Total" in Table XVII.
^•oThe deviations taken from Table XIV must be reduced to per cent, how-
ever, before they may be compared with the values in these tables and plates ; this
may be done by multiplying them by 2.
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90
THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE
TABLE XUa,
Minimal Per Cent of R Cases to be Significant.
Number of
experiments Card Color
in set Most Probable Per Cent. . 2.50 50.0
50 11.87 80.0
100 9.13 71.2
500 5^ 59.5
1000 4.59 56.7
1600 4.16 55.3
aooo 398 54.7
3000 3.71 53-9
5000 3M 53.0
loooo 3-i6 52-1
Number
Suit
10.0
25.0
2ao
51.0
22.7
434
15.7
33^
14.0
3a8
13^
294
12.8
29.1
12.3
28.3
1 1.8
27.6
1 1.3
26.8
TABLE XLII.
Minimal Significant Deviations in Per Cent, for Sets of 50-1000.
50 9.37 30.0 18.0 26.0
100 6.63 21.2 12.7 184
150 5.52 17^ 104 15.0
200 4.68 15.0 9.0 13JO
300 3.83 12.2 74 10.6
400 3.31 10.6 64 9.2
500 2.96 9.5 5.7 a2
600 2.71 8.7 5^ 7.5
700 2.50 8.0 4.8 7.1
800 2.34 7.5 4.5 6.5
900 2.21 7.1 4.2 6.1
1000 2.09 6.7 4.0 5.8
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92 THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE
TABLE XLII«.
Minimal Per Cent of R Cases to be Significant. In Sets of 50-iooa
SSS«/, Card Color Number Suit
in set Most Probable Per Cent.. 2.50 50.0 10.0 25.0*
50 11.87 80.0 28.0 51^
100... 9.13 71^ 22.7 434
ISO 8.02 67.3 204 4ao
200 7.18 65.0 19.0 38.0*
300 6.33 62.2 174 35.6^
400 5.81 60.6 164 34.2
500 546 59.5 157 33^
600 S.21 58.7 15.2 32.5.
700 5.00 58.0 14.8 32.1
800 4.84 57.5 14-5 31-5
900 4.71 57.1 14-2 31.1
1000 4.59 56.7 14.0 30.8*
By reference to the tables above the reader may verify the follow-
ing survey of the highest deviations to be found in our data.
The largest deviations in Table XIV (shown in Table XVIII)"*
compared with the largest chance deviations as calculated from the
formula and tabulated for sets of 50 in Table XLI :
Card Not Imaged. Card Imaged
Card Color No. Suit Card Color No. Suit
Probable Number.... 1.25 25 5 12.5
Table XIV +5 +13 +5+8 +5 +7 -^^ ■*
V2pi
-^ +4.69 +14.9 •♦9.0 +13.0
The largest deviations in Table XVII "* in comparison with calcu-
lated chance deviation, per set of 500:
Card Not Imaged. Card Imaged.
Card Color No. Suit Card Color No. Suit
Probable Per Cent... 2.50 50 10 25
Table XVII. +2.23 +48 +2.7 +3-8 +1.36 +48 +31 +51
L = fJ^ +2.96 495 +5.7 +8.2
The deviations of the total in Table XVII"* in comparison with
calculated chance deviation, per set of 5000:
i«i Supra, p. 66.
162 Supra, p. 65.
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94 THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE
Gird Not Imaged. Card Imaged.
Card Color No. • Suit Card Color No. Suit
Probable Per Cent.... 2.50 50 10 25
Table XVII 40.40 +1.2 0.0 40.8 4048 -0.3 40.5 +1^
L = Y-i/-^ ^'94 +3.0 +1.8 +2.6
It is pretty evident that, taking our data in the mass and selecting
the largest deviations, although the calculated limit of chance deviation
is sometimes approached, it is never (with the exception of the +5 imder
Card in Table XIV) equaled; and the larger the set considered, the
more does it exceed the deviations in the data. This means, then, that,
whether the largest deviations in the single sets, or the deviations in the
totals of ID sets or of 100 sets, are considered, no cause besides chance
is revealed in sufficient magnitude to meet the usual statistical require-
ments for identification.
That a real cause may be present and yet be veiled in the chance
variation has already been considered in the discussion of the use of
analyses for magnifying it sufficiently for detection; but this con-
sideration is worthy another glance here since in the last five sets (/to
V) in Table XIV, C/" we find, on the "Card Imaged" side of the table,
a number of deviations from the probable number for a set of 50, which
we know *•* are the result in part of other causes besides chance, and
which fall within the limits of chance deviation as calculated from our
formula; under "Color" 4-13, +12, and +7 fall within ±14.9, and imder
"Suit" 4-1 1 and +3 fall within ±13. One cannot be in doubt about the
existence of an extra-chance cause in the whole group, because in the
averages the deviations of the per cent of R cases from the probable
per cent exceed in considerable amount the calculated limit of chance
ucv
laiiuii ;
Card Not Imaged.
Card Imaged.
Card
Color No.
Suit Total
Card
Color
No.
Suit Total
Probable %
2.50
50 10
25
Sets
I'V
40.36
-1.8 +3.0
+1.1
24s
+4140
4^.2
+49.6
+29.5
255
L =
'>/?•■■■
+4.19
+134 +8.0 -
HI.6
And the deviations afe magnified by analysis
>: — Distribution over
the die-spots:
Die-Spot Even
-
Die-Spot- Odd
Die-
R Cases
W Num-
■ Die-
WNum-
Spot Card Color
No.
Suit ber
Spot
Card
Color
No.
Sviit
ber
2
+145 -7.9
+5.8
+40 ^Z^7 76
J
+60.90
+47J
.477.a
+44.4
-43*0
lOI
4
+1.40 +7.1
+3.0
+1.0 -74 77
3
. +3.30
-<2.3
+2.8
-2.9
+3.8
86
6
-041 -44
40.9
63.
-0.1 +1.7 92
5
460.70
4-42.7 468.0
i«* Vide, inf
+48.5
ra, pp.
-39.1
121 ff.
68
i«» Supra, p
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GUESSING OF PLAYING-CABDS 95
The hope of bringing to light some influence workirig for R cases,
by the use of calculated limits of chance deviation, then, lies in extend-
ing the experiments to large numbers. If individual deviations which
result in part from causes besides chance lie in a set of experiments too
small in number to raise them above the calculated limit of chance varia-
tion, their significance must be determined by some other method. If
they escape the method of analysis, illustrated some pages above, there
remain the method of distribution, and the method of comparing the
single measures of the regular (Card Imaged) experiments with those
of the control (Card Not Imaged) experiments.
Comparison of the Empirical with their Theoretical Distributions.
According to the theory of probability, when the events the dis-
tribution of which is sought are "discontinuous," *•• such as ours, the
frequencies of the successive variates (numbers of R cases in an aggre-
gate of sets) are given by the successive terms of the expansion of the
binomial theorem,^** ,,. , ^v-
N(q + py
when
N = tht number of sets of experiments
n = the number of experiments in a set
/> = the probability of a single occurrence
9=1 — A
As, in the case of 64 guesses on color, when the R guesses are
coimted in each of 16 sets of 4 experiments :
i6(q' + 4q'P + ^'P*+4qP' + P');
but in this case the probability of a single R guess is yi, hence
P = q=y2s
i«*That is, are exact quantities, like the number of Right guesses on Color
in a set of 50, as distinguished from "Continuous" events, which are approximated
quantities, like the height of a man read from a scale.
iwYuIe (op. cit., p. 293) gives the following rule: 'The frequencies o, i, 2,
. . . successes in N trials of n events are given by the successive terms in the
binomial expansion oi N(q + A)*, vis:
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96 THOUGHT-TRANSFEIENCE
and the equation becomes
= 1+4 + 6 + 4+1.
Consequently we have:
Frequency of R guesses = i 4 6 4 i
Variates (or number of R guesses in the set) =01234
Thus, one set would have no R guesses, four sets would have i R
guess, 6 sets 2 R guesses, four sets 3 R guesses, and one set 4 R guesses.
This is the theoretical distribution,^*' and from it one could draw the
curve of distribution.
If some cause in addition to chance operated for R guesses, the em-
pirical distribution would be expected to depart, in extent correspond-
ing to the efficiency of the cause, from the theoretical distribution, and
it might be detected by a comparison of the distributions ; the empirical
curve would be shifted in the direction of the higher variates.
It may be noted that in the survey of our largest positive deviations
in relation to the linut of chance deviations, which we have just con-
cluded, we compared only the single values at the upper limit of the em-
pirical and the theoretical distributions. We shall later compare the
mean values. Now we are engaged in comparing all of the values in
the empirical distributions with their respective theoretically expected
magnitudes; and not each value singly, but the proportion in which all
of the values in any aggregate of sets are distributed.
The following tables and curves offer the data for visual inspection :
the degree to which an empirical distribution is shifted above or below
the theoretical distribution can be determined to be significant only by
the application of formulae {e, g., Pearson's formulae for "Closeness of
i«^ When n is large it is found convenient to u^ the well-known formula
given by H. Laurent (Calcul des Prohdbilitis) in computing the theoretical distri-
bution: It is a formula for the probability of k occurrences, in a set of n inde-
pendent trials, of an event of which the probability of a single occurrence in one
trial is equal to X: n! ^ ,. n""*
in which n/ is "n factorial":
»/ = »(»-!) (»-2) . . . 3 •2- 1
This formula was used, unless otherwise stated, for computing each of the
theoretical distributions in the following tables. For factorials of large numbers
we used the approximate exponential formula given by Laurent (p. 13) :
n/ = nV*»V2Jin
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GUESSING OF PLAYING-CARDS 97
Fit/' and its probability), and this determination will be deferred^*'
4intil formulae based upon empirical deviations are applied to single
janeasures, in the next section.
In the following tables x is the number of R judgments in a set of
Jo; C stands for Control experiments, "Card Not Imaged"; R, for
Regular experiments, "Card Imaged"; P, for the theoretically Probable
Clumber. The Residuals are the deviations from F. Under C, R, and
P, are entered the number of sets. The whole number of sets upon
which all the tables are based is lOO.
Table XLIII gives the distribution of R judgments on the whole
"''Card"; Table XLIV, on "Color"; Table XLV, on "Number"; Table
XLVI, on "Suit"; and Table XLVII, guesses wholly wrong; and
the accompan3ring Plates V-IX illustrate the facts in the "Exactly x"
fcolumn.
TABLE XLIII
.
Distribution of R Cases on tlw
I "Card" in
100 sets of
SO.
Probability 1:40 (2.5%)
Normal Reagents.
^
Occurrence of Numbers
Residuals
Difference R-C
C
R P
C
R
P
C
R
C
R
Below
Exactly
Below X
Exactly
X
Below X
Exactly x
X
X
0
0
0 0
24
20
28
0
0
-4
-8
0
-4
^
M
ao 28
32
21^
21^
-4
-8
-4
0
-A
+4
2
56
56 64
30
27
23
-8
-8
+7
+4
0
-3
s
86
83 87
8
8
9
-I
-4
-I
-I
-3
0
4
94
91 96
4
7
3
-2
-5
+1
+4
-3
+3
5
98
98 99
I
I
I
-I
-I
0
0
0
0
6
99
99 100
I
I
0
-I
-I
+1
+1
0
0
7
100
100 100
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
From Table XLIII we note that less than one R case on the whole
card occurred in 24% of the "Control" (Card Not Imaged) sets, 20%
of the "Regular" (Card Imaged) sets, while 28% is recorded as the
theoretical expectation, giving residuals of -4 and -8 respectively; and
-that Exactly one R case occurred in 32% of the "Control" sets and 36%
of the "Regular" sets, with a probability of 36%, giving residuals of -4
and o respectively ; the Difference R-C was -4 and +4 respectively.
The "Residuals below x*' show by their consistent negative signs
that both empirical curves are somewhat shifted toward the higher vari-
!«• Vide, infra, p. 108.
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98
THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE
atcs, and the corresponding /?-C diflfcrences "Below jr" show that some
slight advantage is held by the regular distribution. The "Residuals
Exactly jt" show that the advantage was made on the variates 2 and 4^
and the "Difference R'-C Exactly ^ shows the Regular distribution to
hold the advantage on variate 4. The accompanying curv^ (Plate V)
give a pictorial view of the relations existing^ between the three distribu-
tions. Whether the advantage of the Regular distribution is significant
will be shown in the next section.
TABLE XUV.
Distribution of R Cases on "Color^ in 100 sets of 50.
Probability 1:2 (50%). Normal Reagents.
X
Occurrence of Numbers
Residuals
Difference R-C
Below
X
Exactly
X
Below X
Exactly x
Below Exactly
C
R
P*
C
R
P
C
R
C
R
X
X
16
0
0
0
1
0
0
0
0
+1
0
0
-I
17
I
0
I
0
I
I
0
-I
-I
0
-I
4-1
18
I
I
2
3
4
2
-I
-I
+1
+2
0
+1
19
4
5
3
2
4
3
+1
+2
-I
+1
+1
42
20
6
9
6
9
5
4
0
+3
+5
+1
+3
-4
21
15
H
10
I
8
6
+5
+4
-5
4a
-I
+7
22
16
22
16
4
2
8
0
■N5
-4
-6
4€
-2
2S
20
34
24
8
8
10
-4
0
-2
-2
+4
0
24
28
32
34
9
8
II
-6
-2
-2
-3
+4
-I
2$
37
40
44
13
12
II
-7
-4
+2
+1
+3
-I
26
50
52
56
II
19
II
-6
-4
0
+8
+2
48
^
61
71
66
10
8
10
-5
+5
0
-2
+10
-2
28
71
79
76
7
4
8
-5
+3
-I
-4
+8
-3
29
78
83
84
6
II
6
-6
-I
0
+5
+5
+5
30
84
94
90
6
2
4
-6
+4
+2
-2
+10
-4
31
90
96
94
3
I
3
-4
+2
0
-2
46
-2
32
93
97
97
3
3
2
"4
0
+1
+1
44
0
33
96
100
98
I
0
I
-2
+2
0
-I
+4
-I
34
97
100
99
0
0
0
-2
+1
0
0
+3
0
35
97
100
100
I
0
0
-3
0
+1
0
+3
-I
36
98
100
100
I
0
0
-2
0
+1
0
42
-I
37
99
100
100
0
0
0
-I
0
0
0
4-1
0
38
99
100
100
I
0
0
-I
0
+1
0
+1
-I
39
100
100
100
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
*The apparent discrepancies in this column are accountable for by the sum-
mation of decimals which were negligible in the P column under "Exactly jr."'
The nearest integral number was chosen in both columns.
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GUESSING OF PLAYING-CASDS
•99
to
80
10
0 1 8 5 4 6 6
Plate v.— R Guesses on the "Card"
Each curve includes 100 sets, of 50. Probable number, 1^5.
(Solid line, "Card Not Imaged"; broken line, "Card Imaged"; light
line. Probability.)
15
10
20 25 80 86 40
Plate VI.— R Guesses on the "Color."
100 sets, of 50, in each curve. Probable number, 25.
(Solid line, ''Card Not Imaged"; broken line, "Card Imaged"; light
line. Probability.)
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100 THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE
From Table XLIV we note that there were less than 24 {x) R cases
on "Color" in 28% of the "Card Not Imaged" sets (C), 32% of the
"Card Imaged" sets (/?), and 34% in the chance distribution (P), giv-
ing residuals of -6 and -2 ; and that there were Exactly 24 R cases in
9% of the "Card Not Imaged" sets, and in 8% of the "Card Imaged"
sets, while it is expected in 11% of sets of chance events, giving resid-
uals of -2 and -3 respectively ; that the Difference R-C for "Below ^"
is +4 and for "Exactly jt" is -i. The table shows both sets of experi-
ments to approximate fairly closely the theoretical values. The facts in
the "Exactly jr" colunm are more clearly shown in the curves of Plate
VI. That the larger residuals are not so distributed as to be significant
may be better appreciated if the data of the table under "Occurrence of
numbers, Exactly jt" are grouped in fives about the central variate (-?5),
and the broader relations between R and C and P are displayed :
X C R P
Below 18 I I 1
i8''22 19 23 23
2^-27 51 55 53
^ 28-32 25 21 23
33-37 3 o I
Above 37 I o o
TABLE XLV.
Distribution of R Cases on "Number" in 100 sets of 50.
Probability 1:10 (10%). Normal Reagents.
Occurrence of Numbers Residuals Difference R-C
Below X Exactly x Below x Exactly x Below Exactly
X C R P"^ C R P C R C R X x
OOOOOII 00-10 O +1
/ o I I 7 I 3 -I o +4 -2 +1 -6
^724669 +3-^-3-3-5 o
3 n 8 12 12 12 15 +1 ^ -3 -3 -5 o
-# 25 20 27 15 18 19 -2 -7 -^ -I -5 +3
5 40 38 46 23 19 20 -6-8+3-1-2 -^
<^ 63 57 6s 13 20 16 -^ -^ -3 . +4 ^ +7
7 76 77 82 9 9 10 -6 -5 -I -I +1 o
* 85 86 91 10 6 5 -6-5+5 +1 +1 -A,
9 95 92 96 3 2 2 -I -4 +1 o -3 -I
/o 98 94 99 2 3 I -I -5 +1 +« -4 +1
// 100 97 100 o 3 0 0-3 0+3 -3 +3
/^ 100 100 100 o o o 0000 o o
♦For apparent discrepancies in this column see foot-note, Table XLIV, p. 98
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GUESSING OF PLAYING-CARDS 101
In Table XLV like facts are displayed with respect to the R cases
on "Number" of spots. Although the residuals under "Below y dis-
close a slight shifting of i? above P, especially on variates 6, lo, and //
(see also curves in Plate VII j, this advantage is to some extent shared
with C, and the difference R-C leaves but little in i?*s favor. Under
"Exactly x" the advantages of R are not great, as may be better seen
if the data are grouped:
X C R P
Below I o I I
i-i 25 19 27
4-6 51 57 55
7-9 22 17 17
i(y-i2 2 6 I
0 189466769 10
Plate VII.— R Guesses on the "Number."
100 sets, of 50, in each curve. Probable number, 5.
(Solid line, "Card Not Imaged"; broken line, "Card Imaged"; light
line, Probability.)
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102
THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE
TABLE XLVL
Distribution of R Cases on
"Suit"
in 100 sets of 5a
Probability 1:4 (25%).
Normal Reagents.
Occurrence of Numbers
Residuals
DiflFerence R-C
Below
X
]
Exactly x
Below X
Exactly x
Below Exactly
X
C
R
P*
C
R P
C
R
C
/e
X
X
6
0
0
I
I
I I
-I
-I
0
0
0
0
7
I
I
2
2
3 a
-I
-I
0
+1
0
+1
8
3
4
4
2
I 4
-I
0
-2
-3
+1
-I
9
5
5
8
10
5 7
-3
-3
+3
-2
0
-5
JO
IS
10
15
7
7 9
0
-5
-2
-2
-5
0
II
22
17
24
16
10 II
-2
-7
+5
-1
-5
-6
12
38
27
35
9
21 13
+3
-8
-4
+8
-II
+12
13
47
48
48
14
10 13
-I
0
+1
-3
+1
-4
H
6i
58
61
II
10 12
0
-3
-I
-2
-5
-I
15
72
68
72
9
14 9
0
-4
0
+3
-4
+5
16
8i
82
82
4
7 7
-I
0
-3
0
+1
+3
17
85
89
89
9
4 5
-4
0
+4
-I
+4
-5
i8
94
93
93
0
a 3
+1
0
-3
-I
-I
4^
19
94
95
97
3
2 2
-3
-2
+1
0
+1
-I
20
97
97
98
I
2 I
-I
-I
0
+1
0
+1
21
98
99
99
2
I 0
-I
0
+2
+1
+1
-I
22
100
100
100
0
0 0
1
•«
ft
0
0
0
0
0
0
16
f •
\^'
1
1
«
. K\/v
X
1
t
9 18 17
Plate VIII.— R Guesses on the "Suit."
100 Sets, of 50, in each curve. Probable number 12.5.
(Solid line, "Card Not Imaged"; broken line, "Card Imaged"; light
line. Probability.)
♦ Sec foot-note Table XUV, p. 98.
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GUESSING OF PLAYING-CABDS 103
Table XLVI presents the data for R cases on "Suit," and shows
amid great irregularity, best appreciated from the curves on Plate VIII,
a very close approximation of J? to P and C. A grouping of the "Ex-
actly x" data gives the following view :
X C R P
Below 7 I I I
7-/0 21 l6 23
ii-ii SO 51 49
15-18 22 27 24
Above 18 6 ^S 3
TABLE XLVII.
Distribution of W Cases in 100 sets of 50.
Probability 1:2.22 (45%). Normal Reagents.
Occurrence of Numbers Residuals Difference R-C
Below X Exactly x Below x Exactly x Below Exactly
X
C
R
P
C
R
P
C
/?
C
R
jr
JT
II
0
0
0
I
0
0
0
0
+1
0
0
-I
12
I
0
0
0
0
0
+1
0
0
0
-I
0
13
I
0
0
2
0
0
+1
0
+2
0
-I
-2
14
3
0
0
0
0
I
+3
0
-I
-I
-3
0
13
3
0
I
0
I
I
+2
-I
-I
0
-3
+1
16
3
I
2
4
2
2
+1
-I
+2
0
-2
-4
17
7
3
4
8
2
4
+3
-I
+4
-2
-4
-6
18
15
5
8
7
5
5
+7
-3
+2
0
-10
-3
19
22
10
13
7
8
7
■^9
-3
0
+1
-12
+1
20
29
18
20
8
12
9
-^9
-2
-I
+3
-II
+4
21
37
30
29
8
II
10
+8
+1
-2
+1
-7
+3
22
45
41
39
II
12
II
4^
+2
0
+1
-4
+1
23
56
53
50
7
II
."
+6
+3
^
0
-3
+4
24
63
64
61
7
8
10
+2
+3
-3
-2
+1
+1
25
70
72
71
8
6
9
-I
+1
-I
-3
+2
-2
26
78
78
80
5
8
7
-2
-2
-2
+1
0
+3
^
83
86
87
4
I
5
-4
-I
-I
-4
+3
-3
28
87
87
92
6
8
4
-5
-5
+2
+4
0
+2
29
93
95
95
2
2
2
-2
0
0
0
+2
0
30
95
97*
97
3
3
I
-2
0
+2
•ta
■te
0
31
98
100
98
I
0
I
0
+2
0
-I
+2
-I
32
99
100
99
I
0
0
0
+1
+1
0
+1
-I
33
100
100
100
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
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104
THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE
Table XLVII and Plate IX present the data for guesses Wholly
Wrong. Again, amid great irregularity there is a fairiy close approxi-
mation of J? to P and C. A grouping of data under "Exactly jr" gives
the following more regular distributions :
X C
Below IS I
IS-16 6
IT-^ 30
^^-^4 33
23-28 23
29-32 7
Above 32 0
R
P
0
0
3
4
27
25
42
42
23
25
5
4
0
0
10
15 20 25 30 35
Plate IX.— Guesses Wholly Wrong.
100 Sets, of 50, in each curve. Probable number, 22.5.
(Solid line, "Card Not Imaged"; broken line, "Card Imaged"; higher light line,
the theoretical curve (found by the expansion of (9+^)**) ; the lower light line, a
proximate synmietrical curve found by x/a calculated from the two empirical
curves and evaluated in a table of values of the normal probability integral.
{Vide, Davenport: Statistical Methods, 3d ed., pp. 119 ff.).
This cursory comparison of the empirical with the theoretical dis-
tributions reveals (a) the irregularity of empirical distributions which
may be expected when they consist of but 100 sets, and have a fairly
large number of variates over which to be distributed; and (b) some
slight advantage, which the irregularity makes difficult to see, but which
the "Residuals Below x*' definitely indicate, for the Regular distribu-
tions of R cases on Card, Color, Number and Suit.
Whether the advantage is significant can scarcely be estimated by
visual inspection, especially since it is shared by the Control distribu-
tions almost fully in the R cases on the Card, and Suit, somewhat on
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GUESSING OF PLAYING-CAKDS 105
Number, and is exceeded on Color. It evidently needs statistical test-
ing,^** which belongs in the following section where customary formulae
are applied to the empirical deviations from central measures, for the
purpose of determining the reliability and the significance of the central
and other single measures of the R cases reported in our tables.
Application of Usual Statistical Formulcte to Central and Other Single
Mectsures,
The single measures of the sets, with their measures of precision
and their relation to the limits of chance as determined both from em-
pirical data and from theoretical formulae, may now be inspected.
In Table XLVIII we note in line (A) the arithmetical means
found from the lOO sets of lOO experiments each, after both the "Card
Not Imaged" and the "Card Imaged" parts had been reduced to sets of
50, which agrees with the total in Table XVa;"® (B) gives the prob-
able number, expected by chance; (C) shows the deviation of the
mean from the probable number; and (£>) gives it in per cent, which
is comparable with other tables and with lines (/), (L), (M), (N) and
(P) below; (£) gives the customary Probable Error of the mean,
{PEu)* which indicates the distance from the mean beyond which the
odds are even that the mean may fall ; (F) gives the deviation from the
mean equal to 3 X PEu beyond which the chance is i :2i that the mean
may fall; and (G) gives the deviation which is usually viewed as "sig-
nificant," 5 X PEu beyond which the odds are only i : 1310 that the
mean will fall."^ (£), (F) and (G) are comparable with (C). (H)
gives the Standard Deviation of the Distribution, at which is regarded
as the best measure of variability,"^ and marks a limit beyond which
32% of all the cases fall; (I) gives in per cent the limit of 3a, which
is a rough measure of the amount of dispersion that may be expected
for a normal distribution, about three cases in 1000 falling beyond it ; ^^*
(/) gives Dev./0 from which {K) is found in a table of values giving
the fraction of the area of the surface of frequency between the limits
♦P£m = ±0.6745 ^.
ta= (mr.
i«o Yide^ infra, p. 108.
1^0 Appendix A.
1^1 Davenport, op. cit., p. 14.
*T2 yide, Davenport, op. cit., p. 16 ; also, Yule, op. cit., p. 144.
"8 Vide, Yule, op. cit., p. 266.
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THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE
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GUESSING OF PLAYING-CARDS 107
of o and jr/a.^^* The (K) values indicate the number of cases out of
looo which may be expected to fall between o and plus or minus the
deviations shown in (C): (L) gives the values of the deviations in (C)
in per cent, which will satisfy the requirement that P = 0.76. (M)
gives in per cent limits, 3.29 X o, beyond which only one case in 1000
may be expected to fall; and (N) gives the maximum positive deviation
in per cent, and (P) gives the theoretical limit, also in per cent, stated
in the first line of Table XLI, for comparison with the empirically de-
rived limits.
Line (C) shows how little the mean (A) deviates from the prob-
able number (B). The deviation, in most of the cases, does not exceed
2 X P£uf which is a limit beyond which the mean may be expected to
fall in one case out of every 6 cases of 10,000 experiments such as ours.
Only two deviations (+0.28 on the Card and +0.57 on Suit on the "Card
Imaged" side of the table) approach closely the limit of 3 X PEut (P),
beyond which the mean may be expected to fall once in every 22 cases.
For these deviations to be "significant" they should equal at least
5 X PEu, (G) ' that would indicate that there would be only one chance
in 131 1 cases for the mean to coincide with the theoretically expected
number (B). Line (L) shows this limit in per cent of number of sets
(100), and line (K) shows how small is the deviation of the mean from
the probable number, by indicating the number of cases in a distribu-
tion of 1000 which may be expected to fall between the limits below
and above the mean, equal to the deviation. So much for the relation
between our central measure, the mean, and its deviation from the prob-
able number, as revealed by the Probable Error of the mean, which is
derived from the facts of the actual distribution of R cases in our 100
sets of experiments. Were there a general force beyond chance work-
ing in most of the sets for R cases, it should be detected here in the
mean. In case such a force expressed itself in a few sets only, the
mean might not reveal it.
Whether some of the sets exceeded chance in number of R cases,
so far as the question can be settled by a central measure, must be as-
certained by means of the measure of variability — the Standard Devia-
tion (o), shown in line (H), which fixes the negative and positive lim-
its from the mean between which 68% of all the cases distributed may
be expected to fall: 30, given in per cent of number of experiments (50
in a set) in line (/), is a convenient limit beyond which only 3 cases
out of 1000 may be expected to fall. When the largest positive devia-
"4 Davenport, op. cit., pp. 119 ff.
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108 THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE
tion (N) is compared with (/) and (Af ), the latter of which gives the
limit beyond which but i case out of looo may be expected to fall, it is
pretty clear that the limits of distribution of the R cases in our lOO sets
are quite close to what is expected of chance deviation, and that, there-
fore, the R cases in single sets have not been augmented by some cause
oesides chance, sufficient in amount to place any of them beyond the ex-
pected limit.
By comparison of (N) and (P) one can see that the theoretical
deviation from the probable per cent (P) demanded of the number of
R cases in a set, in order to be considered proof of some cause besides
chance, lies fairly close to the maximum positive deviation, expressed
m per cent (N), which we have found in our distributions of the R
cases of sets. This may be regarded as justifying the use of the formu-
lae by which Tables XLI and XLIa and their accompanying curves were
derived, since for a set of 50, where deviations are likely to be quite er-
ratic, our empirically derived limit of chance so closely approximates-
the limit theoretically derived.
One remaining single measure, deferred from preceding pages,^'*^
may now claim our attention: the measure of the Closeness of Fit^'*
of the curves of distribution of R cases in the "Card Imaged" experi-
ments, with their corresponding theoretical curves. For the "Card," ^''
for example, this measure is 2,9, with a probability of 0.169; which
means that the fit is sufficiently close to be expected in 169 cases out of
1000, when the deviations are due to chance alone. The other measures-
in the following table are to be similarly interpreted :
A P
Card 2.9 0.169
Color 4.92 0.084
Number 2.89 0.760
Suit 4.08 0.274
i7» Vide, supra, pp. 96-97, 104-5.
iTepor Formulae, vide, infra, p. no.
1T7 Vide, Plate V, supra, p. 99.
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guessing of playing-cards 1q9
Statistical Expectation of Reagents.
As has been noted, the experience of the experimentation in the
laboratory usually left the reagent's faith in the telepathic hypothesis
whole. He usually discriminated from three to five degrees of certainty
with which he made his guess, and since about i8% of the guesses were
made with a high degree of certainty, that is, with a definite feeling
that they stood a much better chance of being right than a pure guess
would have, he often frankly expected statistical confirmation. Out of
70 reagents, 52 were able, after they had been given a list of the prob-
able per cent of R cases for the various rubrics to be expected from
chance alone, to express their statistical expectation in quantitative form
(per cent of the whole number of experiments in a set). These esti-
mates are put in Table XLIXa,"* the footings from which are included
in
TABLE XLIX.
Per Cent of R Cases expected by Reagents. (52 Reagents).
Card Color No. Suit W Total
(A) Total R Cases Expected... 319 3342 880.5 1939 1457-8 5^00
(B) Average Per Cent 6.14 64.3 16.9 37.2 28.0
(C) Probable Per Cent 2.50 50.0 10.0 25.0 45.0
(D) Dev. Set of 100 +3.64 +14.3 -H5.9 +12.2 -17.0
(£) Dev. Set of 50 +728 4^.6 +13.8 +244 -34.0
Minimal Signif. Dev.*
(F) a. Set of 50 +9.37 +30.o +18.0 +26.0 -36.0
(G) b. Set of 2000 +148 +4.7 +2.8 +4.1 -7.1
Dev. of Results:
(H) a. Card Not Imaged +0.43 +1.7 -K).7 +0.9 -1.7
(/) b. Card Imaged +0.29 -0.2 0.0 +1.2 4o.7
By comparison of the expected Deviation, line (£), with the Prob-
able Per Cent, line (C), and with the Minimal Significant Deviation
for a set of 50 (F), it may be seen that the average expectation for a
single set was quite close to but not above the limit of chance ; but for
a set of 2000 (G), somewhat less than the number of Card Imaged ex-
periments in their aggregate results, it greatly exceeds the limit of
* From Table XLI, supra, p. 89.
*^* Appendix A.
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1 10 THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE
chance. The relations between the expected deviations, the limit of
chance, and the actual results of the Card Imaged part of these reagents'
work may be more clearly perceived in Plate X, in which lines (£),
(G), and (/) are illustrated.
The distribution of the expected values, shown in the accompany-
ing curves (Plate XI), deviates quite widely from the distribution of
the probability values.
If the measure of Closeness of Fit "• of the expected to the theo-
retical curve for the "Card" may be taken as a general indication of the
extent expectation exceeded probability for all the rubrics in general,
we find that there are only about two chances in one septillion trials for
the expectation to be fulfilled by chance.
( A = 1 1 .66. P = 0.000,000,000,000,000,000,000,002,381 ) .*
Closeness of Fit calculated in like manner for the distribution of R
cases on the "Card," for all reagents when the card was imaged (see
Colunm C, Exactly Xy Table XLIII, and Plate V),^*^ indicates that 169
out of 1000 curves such as ours may be expected to deviate as much as
ours from the theoretical curve (A = 2.9; Pc= 0.169).^*^
Analysis of Experience.
The records of the 10,000 introspections show that altogether
guesses were made with five grades of certainty, and as a whole were
distributed, in per cent, as follows:
A B C D Guess Indeterminate
3.88 14.03 37.11 26.16 16.25 2.57
Four reagents out of the 100 used less than three grades, while the ma-
.P=<^^A. (.+4+^+ :;^ + ...+ ^"*
2 ^ 2*4 ^ 2-4-6 ^ " '-r 2-4-6 . , . A--3
A = number of classes in the distribution, and e is the base of the Napierian log-
arithms. / d*"
"•Davenport, op, cit, p. 24, gives it as A = -J 2^ » in which \ is the dif-
ference between the theoretical value (y) and the observed frequency (/) of each
respective class in the distribution, and 2 is the sign of summation.
i«o Supra, pp. 97-99.
i«i Supra, p. 108.
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40-
Card
Color
Vtoribor
Bolt
80-
<X
a=
Sxpected
Idmlt of Ch«noe« Set of 2ooo«
ji
Actuaa RoBults, **Card Ima^6V
Plate X. — Deviation from Probability Expected by 52 Reagents, on Card, Color,
Number, and Suit, compared with the Limit of Chance and the Actual Results.
(The values plotted in the first curve will be found in Table XLIXa, Appendix A.)
Csr^
h=a^
O-/ X-vf 4'S 4-7 9-9 19'N l%^l^^
Mot
•-« 9-7 9-fM. a-n f f '9% l^-fT 99-9X99^7 99'tK
Suit
dJ
aK
-♦«
tm
$t» »vr !•■» «?-tf »*»«wraM«4»-#r««»«Mr j(M« *»*r
9y>f JfL4lC 40^ 494M, 99-f7J9'» »4f §9-79. 79>777f •#>
Plate XL — Distribution of Expected Per Cents of Right Cases (heavy line)
compared with CThance Distribution (light line).
52 Reagents, saoo Experiments.
(For values in distribution, see Table XLIX6, Appendix A.)
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1 12 THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE
jority (73) used more than three; the individual variation is shown in
the following distribution :
Number of Grades used o ^ 3 4 5
Number of Reagents. 2 2 2$ 41 32
The outstanding fact in the reagent's experience of guessing cards
is this variability of the certainty or confidence with which the guess is
made. It no doubt constitutes a strong support for a hospitable attitude
toward the telepathic hypothesis, as it does for the reagent's definite ex-
pectation that statistical verification lies in the data of his experiments.
The causes for this subjective basis for the belief in thought-transfer-
ence can only be found by a thorough analysis of the experience of the
reagent.
His records also show that during the critical interval of the ex-
periment, while his eyes are closed and he is passively alert for an ''im-
pression" of some card, pertinent imagery of some sort presents itself
in his mind, and sometimes with great vividness and force. With re-
spect to the mode of the imagery, individuals vary considerably. Some
of the reagents were dominantly Visual (39%), some Auditory (2%),
some Kinaesthetic (feeling of the organs of pronunciation) (4%);
some used predominantly two modes: Visual and Auditory (19%),
Visual and Kinaesthetic (13%), Kinaesthetic and Auditory (3%);
while others used freely imagery of all modes (18%), or were doubtful
about the imagery in which their impressions came (2%). The dis-
tribution of individuals with respect to dominant mode of imagery was :
Dominant Mode V
Number of Reagents 39
The experience of the individual reagent, however, was not uniform, as
in routine, but varied during his set of 100 experiments to some degree,
in almost every respect covered by the classification furnished him for
his introspections. Considered in the aggregate with respect to the more
dominant mode of the imagery from which the guesses were made, the
cases distribute as follows :
More Dominant Mode V A K None Undetermined
Per Cent of Guesses 49-2 184 15.7 16.3 i.o
The reagent's feeling of certainty was not usually determined by
the mode of his impression, however, — ^although there were sixteen re-
agents who stated that the visual mode, and five that the auditory, was
preferred, — but by special intensity, quality, or behavior of the imagery
A
K
VA
VK
^^ Mixed I
Doul
2
4
19
13
3 18
2
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GUESSING OF PLAYING-CAfiDS
113
or censations which came into his mind during the critical interval. This
information is derived both from the recorded replies to the last ques-
tion in the Outline for Introspections, asking why the guess was graded
high, and from private interview after the reagent's experiments were
over and he was requested to explain more fully his introspections.
That the experiences which contributed a high degree of certainty
to the guess were unusual is indicated by the relatively small number of
high grades recorded by the various reagents: 82% gave grade A to
less than 6% of their guesses, and 55% gave a high grade (either A or
B) to less than 16% of their guesses, as may be calculated from the
following table, which shows the distribution, and the accompanying
curves (29 reagents gave grade A from i to 5 times) :
No. of times Grade was given 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 SO 55 60 65 70
No. of Reagents who gave Grade ^.532910 i 2 i o i 2 i
^ or B. 10 19 II 15 8 10 4 7 4 4 4 I I I I
No. Of 0-
dUMSM 0 6 10 18 to
8840486066606870 78
Plate XII.— Distribution of the Number of A Grades (solid line)
and the Number, of A and B Grades (broken line)
Given by One Reagent.
100 Reagents. 1-5 plotted on 5; 6-10 on 10; etc.
Recorded interviews give the opinion of the reagent, as generalized
from his experience, that his feeling of certainty depended upon —
(i) The strength, vividness, clearness, or distinctness of the imagery or
impression ;
{2) Its persistence, intermittence, or recurrence within the critical interval;
is) Its appearance at the beginning or at the end of the interval;
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114 THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE
(4) Its suddenness of appearing, "flashing out"; or its deliberate and gradual
"maturing" into definiteness ;
(5) Its apparent location; and size, if visual;
(6) The completeness with which the detail of the card was represented;
(7) Reduplication of the card, or its exclusive possession of the field;
(8) The impression of the card in dual or combined mode ;
(9) A sense of reality of the impression;
(10) Special content or behavior of the imagery accepted as significant;
(//) A sense of the independence of the impression from mental process or
volition ;
(i^) An inner feeling of certainty, not further analyzable;
(13) An extra-self active principle;
(14) Some accompanying element of experience accepted as a token of cer-
tainty, such as a vibration in the ear;
(is) Or merely an inference from favoring circumstances, such as freedom-
from distraction, a clear mind, good concentration, etc.
The recorded introspections support these generalizations:
(i) "Very distinct" (2:5:2),* "Very vivid" (4:7:3), "Strength of impres-
sion" (9:1:1), "Vividness" (10:4:1), "Extra clear" (11:1:2), "Extremely
dear" (11:6:8), "Plain sight of card" (12:1:9), "Vivid picture" (16:9:8),
"Very vivid and loud" (17:4:6), "Vivid" (18:4:5), "Impression very vivid"
(19:1:3), "More plain than usual" (33:2:3), "Unusually vivid" (33:6:10),
"Plainly seen" (34:3:5), "Clearly heard" (34:4:6), "Exceptionally clear"
(34:5:9), "Distinctly heard" (34:6:5), "Clear vision" (35:6:1), "Appeared so
clearly" (36:1:8), "It was so plain" (^:5:2), "Sounded quite sharp" (39:2:9),
"Sensation of V and K so clear" (40:7:1), "Seemed shouted out at me"
(86:8:10), "Very vivid" (88:7:3), "Strong (auditory) impression" (90:10:3),
"Very distinct" (44:2:6), "Clear and distinct" (45:2:10), "Qearest one this
hour" (41:7:4), "Saw it vividly" (46:3:5), "Very plain" (47:9:7), "More vivid
impression, seemed to hear words plainly" (48:3:8), "Saw it plainly" (94:1:2),
"Heard it clearly" (94:5:2), "Very clear image" (53:2:2), "(x)uld hear it dis-
tinctly" (57:3:3), "Heard it distinctly" (61:2:4), 'Torce of it" (55:i:7), "Certain
of judgment because it sounded so distinct and plain" (63:1:10), "Clearer picture
than usual" (66:2:1), "Saw it written out and image seemed strong" (66:3:5),
"Clearest picture I have got yet" (66:6:8), "Impression strong, some one speak-
ing" (73:1:7), "I could see the card stand out sharp" (69:2:9), "Image seemed
especially distinct" (79:10:8), "Felt my tongue saying, then saw the card"
(29:6:3), "Hurt my throat" (6:8:10), "Felt it distinctly in throat" (13:3:7),
"Was more distinct" (27:5:9), "Very clear feeling in throat" (38:1:8), "Felt
strength [of impuse to speak it]" (95:5:5), "Strong impulse" (51:1:1), "Strong
feeling in throat and impulse to pronounce [name of card]" (84:2:5), "Great
desire to repeat 'deuce of diamonds'" (33:7:3), "Am sure I heard it" (20:5:7),
"I could see it" (20:9:4), "Saw it vividly in experimenter's hand" (21:1:8),
"Heard it pronounced emphatically" (21:6:7), "Seemed to see that card"
(25:2:5), etc.
*The parentheses indicate that the quotation is made from the records of the
2d reagent; his 5th series, 2d experiment.
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GUESSING OF PLAYING-CARDS 115
(-?) "Because V and K persisted" (3:5:2), "Definite, persistent" (4:8:3),
"Kept reappearing in mind*' (25:7:6), "Impression did not change" (27:7:5),
"Insistent" (27:8:4), "Persistent [auditory image]" (34:1:7), "Very persistent
[visual image]" (34:1:9), "Persistency" (43:4:4), "Plainness and persistence of
sound" (48:1:3), "Very persistent and clear" (53:1:5), "Very persistent"
(56:2:2), "Saw clearly and continuously" (57:3:7), "C:ard persisted" (73:8:9),
"It kept recurring" (76:3:6), "Because of the persistency after once heard"
(78:1:6), "It was hard to force it out of my mind although it came the first
instant" (79:9:6), "Qear and persistent" (88:4:1), "Loud and persistent"
(88:9:1), "A steady recurrence" (92:7:6), "Very persistent" (93:1:3), etc
(3) "Immediate" (3:8:3), "(3ame immediately and was very persistent"
(4:2:5), "Came immediately, persistent" (4:8:7), "Kinaesthetic sensation came
immediately and remained" (27:1:2), "Heard it immediately" (27:6:2), "Impres-
sion came immediately" (90:5:1; 7:10), "It came earlier than others" (41:1:10),
"Clear, quick and persistent" (53:1:9), "Very quick and strong image" (53:4:6),
"It entered right away and I could not get rid of it" (54:1:3), "Quidc plain
image of the card" (54:2:8), "Came early" (56:1:5), "Saw card quickly and
clearly" (47:1:4), "C^me quick and distinct" (57:2:1), "Quick clear impression"
(61:10:1), "It came so strongly and quickly" (66:1:3), "Came quick; I
imagined I could hear the name of card" (68:2:10), "A picture came as soon as
I concentrated" (68:3:9), "C:ame quickly and stayed" (76:9:6), "Quicker and
more definite than most" (76:8:10), "Could see it so plain and quickly" (69:2:1),
"Came into my mind immediately" (70:1:2), "Picture at once" (70:4:1), "It
loomed up as soon as I began ; it was very vivid all the time" (82 : i : 7), "Came
quickly and stayed" (76:6:9), "Quicker and more definite than most" (76:8:10),
"Could see it so plain and quickly" (69:2:1), "Came into my mind inunediately"
(70:1:2; 10:2:2), "Picture at once" (70:4:1), "Very clear and quick to come
to my mind" (82:2:4), "Persistency and quickness" (78:4:3), "(3ame quickly
and clearly" (87:2:7), "Very clear and immediate" (90:1:7), "Impression came
immediately" (90:5:1; 7:10), "Very quick and persistent" (94:2:9), "Quick
and vivid" (94:10:5), etc.
(4) "At the end [of the interval] the four of spades came in quickly"
(6:1:9), "Saw ace of hearts in a flash" (6:4:5), "Quickness of appearance"
(12:3:10), "Quickness" (22:5:10), "Vision of card came suddenly and clearly"
(25:6:6), "Because the impression came quickly" (27:2:7), "Seemed to come
with a vim" (39:2:6), "Words flashed into mind" (33:5:6), "It came suddenly
and clearly" (41 : i :8), "It jumped into view very quick and clear" (41 : 2:3), "Card
like a flash, and distinct" (57:1:10), "Saw clearly and suddenly" (57:7:4),
"Quick clear impression" (61:1:2), "Because it came to me like a flash, and very
vivid" (63:1:5), "Flashed before me, first the number, then the suit" (66:1:5),
"Flashed into my mind instantly" (74:3:3), "Plain, sharp; flashed before my
eyes" (69:1:4), "Had no idea of number until suddenly I wished to repeat this"
(79:3:1), "Flashed up definitely" (91:5:9), "Quick and vivid" (94:10:5),
"Formed slowly" (65:8:1), "Saw card slowly, but surely and clearly" (57:10:3),
'This grew on me more than the others" (66:1:7), "I was sure of this, as the
card came in parts, first red, and then the number and suit" (68:3:8), "Slow and
distinct" (94:5:9), etc.
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1 16 THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE
(5) "Near, big" (88:5:7), "Large and vivid" (88:7:5), "Large card plain"
(91:6:2).
(6) Specific cases of "Completeness of detail" are all classified under the
first head above, clearness, distinctness, etc. Reagent 6, however, states that he
gave grade A if he could count the spots.
(7) "No other ideas" (3:2:10), "No other card seen at aU" (3:6:7), "Only
card image I had" (25:7:2), "Single impression" (25:9:8), "Alone in field"
(45:2:6), "Came quick and sure; no other image" (68:i:i), "Came quick and
alone" (68:1:5), "I could see nothing else but this card" (68:3:4), "Stood out
clearly as one especial card from a mass" (36:1:3), "Saw deck spread out on
table; all vague except one" (36:2:5), "Saw little 3*s all over" (6:1:3), "I
could see about 100 of them" (32:8:2).
(8) "Both heard and saw card whole interval" (37:1:6), "Came so quickly
and felt it in so many ways" (VAK) (100:3:6).
(9) "Seem to see the card as reality" (11:3:2), "Air of certainty, more
clearly defined" (11:3:9), "Sense of reality" (16:5:6), "Very clear and vivid,
good hunch" (19:4:2), "It seemed to be right" (41:2:10), "Saw and felt it as
the card" (54:6:6), "Certain of judgment; card seemed so real" (63:6:10),
"Positive as if I were looking at it"- (91 : 8:8), "Very clear and real" (57:7:1).
(/o) "Could see it pinned on wall" (11:8:3), "Mental picture of card being
turned" (45:6:4), "Seemed to see the card on the bottom of the deck" (48:5:6),
"Qover" (97:6:6), "Saw one bright arrow-point" (54:3:5), "Saw seven spades
in a circle" (54:3:6,), "I could see the card floating through space" (68:9:5),
"Saw an old friend calling it off" (70:3:3), "Definite change from what had been
thinking" (76:1:9), "It was different from the others" (76:2:7).
(//) "Came without effort" (65:1:6). This was usually taken for granted
by the reagents who recorded the detail of the impression or its specific charac-
teristic, in the case of highly graded guesses.
(I^) "Sure 'feeling*" (3:10:9), "Strong sense of right" (12:3:5), "Feeling
of certainty" (16:1:7), "(}ood hunch" (19:6:7), "Feel sure it was right"
(27:6:6), "Feel sure of it" (28:8:8), "Just felt that some one else was thinking
of it" (79:5:9), "Feol it is right" (31:1:7), "Saw a six-spot almost at once;
feel it right" (36:2:7), "I feh quite certain" (41:1:5), "I felt certain" (41:4:3),
"Felt sure" (41:10:2), "Could see card plainly and felt I was right" (63:6:7),
"Inward feeling" (63:7:8), "Strong feeling of correctness" (66:9:1), "Merely
strong feeling" (74:1:4), "Intuition" (74:2:9), "Certainty of feeling" (74:3:2).
{13) "Something made me listen to my own voice repeat card" (36:2:2),
"Something within impressed the card vividly on my mind" (63:3:10), "Some-
thing told me it was correct" (63:10:9).
(14) '^Vibration felt in ear" (27:4:8), "Seemed to ring in my ears"
(77:2:6).
(75) "Room quiet" (25:2:2), "Mind receptive" (28:4:9), "My mind was in
best condition and this card loomed up as soon as I shut my eyes" (82:1:3).
There were several exceptional cases involving the recognition of a true
impression of the card, such as, "Feh as if struggling to get something that I
knew" (33:4:5), or "the impression 'fits right in', 'imbeds itself there' and 'shuts
out other impressions'" (56) ; and some in which the coincidence was expected to
be forced by the will, as, "I willed it to be the number" (74:1:2).
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GUESSING OF PLAYING-CABDS 117
This moderate selection from the 1791 records of highly graded
guesses will perhaps suffice to portray the concrete elements of exper-
ience responsible for the statistical expectation recorded some pages
above. Individual differences are as wide here as they usually are fotmd
to be in mental performances. But, if one were to abstract from those
differences, and seek the prime causes of confidence in guessing, he
would undoubtedly find them in the unusual, or hitherto unnoticed, viv-
idness of imagery, in its apparently independent or automatic appear-
ance and behavior, and in equally automatic impulses to articulation.
We have, then, in the quotations listed above, experiences constituted
largely of , or directly supported by, sensory and motor automatisms.
Many of them are so definite and so cogent that they will withstand the
oft-repeated criticism that "you cannot get the experience of thought-
transference in the laboratory." They are indistinguishable from the
{Erases used by both private and professional "psychics" in describing
their experience, except that they are more explicit in introspective re-
port of imagery. So far as subjective experience of the telepathic pro-
cess is evidence for the objective existence of it, our data seem valid for
testing the phenomenon whether in or out of the laboratory.
In the interest of exactness some qualification should be made as
to the value of our highly graded guesses. It is true that almost all of
the reagents who gave high g^des of certainty to some of their guesses
were in a position similar to that of Reagent 100, who said that the ex-
perience of the experiments made her feel more (than before) inclined
to expect that the experimenter's part makes a difference, and that R
cases will to some extent exceed chance.
But there were some exceptions: Occasionally a reagent graded
"provisionally" on the basis of the vividness of his experience and, like
Reagent 55, expected some excess in R cases, or like Reagent 69, con-
sidering his momentary feeling of certainty wholly unreliable as indica-
tive of anything beyond pure chance, expected probability results.
Although the inner experience of thought-transference occurred in
a substantial proportion of our experiments in the laboratory, it, like the
highly graded guess which it determined, fell indifferently upon the
"Card Not Imaged" and the "Card Imaged" experiments, and no more
often than the low-graded guess produced an R case (see lines {H) and
(/) in Table XLIX)."«
»•« Supra, p. 109.
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1 18 thought-transference
Application of Our Results to the Making of a "Mental
Telepathist/'
If the reader cares for a practical application of certain facts which
he now holds in mind, let him consider the reagent a solid-headed man
of business, his inner experience of thought-transference an mteresting
phase of his work-a-day life, and our data the events from which he
draws his conclusions concerning the objective occurrence of thought-
transference; this "mental telepathist," especially if he is inclined to
make experimental mysticism his avocation, will almost necessarily,
unless he holds rigidly to scientific procedure and mathematics, establish
his faith upon the facts of experience — ^partial, fatally selected, expe-
rience. He finds that his feeling correlates with coincidence; apart
from the many partial successes, he may list : *•*
(i) Hrrs ON Casds Imaged.
1. (79:10:8) "Image seemed especially distinct" BIS i
2. {78:2:8) ''Could hear card named persistently" R7D 5
3. (32 :8:2) 1 could sec about 100 of them" RID 5
4. (66:6:8) "Qearest picture I have got yet" B6S 5
S (66:9:1) "Strong feeling of correctness" R2D i
d. (68:5:8) 'The name of the card came to me quick" B5S 5
7. (68:10:6) "I could hear the name of the card called" R6H i
He has the acknowledgment of the second person, corresponding
to our experimenter, that these received and tabulated thoughts were ac-
tually his thoughts at the time of the inner experience,- (Odd die-spots).
These hits give him much gratification and are frequently recalled
and related. They furnish strong items for generalization.
During his search for truth he has made also another list :
(2) Hits on Casds Not Imaged.
1. (32:9:3) "Awful plain" R5H 4
2. (37:1:7) "Heard in distant voice" R9D 2
3. (90:7:10) "(3ame immediately" R6D 2
4. (63:3:10) "Something within impressed the card vividly on my mind''..B6C 6
5. (66:10:4) "Especially good image" B7S 4
6. (70 : 1 : 2) "Came into my mind immediatel/' R2H 6
7. (70:4:7) "Immediate picture" R4H 2
iwTo interpret the first line: Reagent Tg, in the 8th experiment of the loth
series of his set, gave as a reason for the high grade of certainty with which he
sade his guess the phrase within the quotation marks. The card held by the
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GUESSING OF PLAYING-CABDS 119
These indeed have been coincidences, and the second party acknowl-
edges that those specific facts were in his mind "about" the time of the
inner experience. They also are hits, and are also recalled and reported
with satisfaction. The fact that the coincidence involved the content of
but one mind ("Card Not Imaged," as indicated by the Even die-spots)
is not easily checked up or, indeed, brought to notice at all.
These are the oases of adventure in the occult. Hundreds of par-
tial successes, bewildering in their detail, are also recorded. Yet many
other facts have been noticed but have not been often recalled, much
less listed;
(3) Complete Misses.
I. (78:4:3) "Persistency and quickness" R6H 3
^ (79:5:9) "Just felt that some one else was thinking of it" R7D 6
3. (79:6:5) "Impression was very vivid" B8C 5
4. (79:9:6) "It was hard to force it out of my mind although it came
the first instant" RjH I
5. (33:5:6) "Words flashed into my mind" B6C 1
6. (33:7:3) "Great desire to repeat 'deuce of diamonds'" RaD 3
7.(34:6:5) "Distinctly heard" B6C 4
8. (36:2:7) "Saw a 6-spot almost at once; felt it right" R6D a
9. (87:2:7) "Came quickly and dearl/* R6H a
la (41:1:5) "I felt quite ceruin" BiS 6
11. (41 : 1 : 8) "It came suddenly and dearly" B9S 3
12. (41:2:10) "It seemed to be right" R2H 4
13. (41:6:6) "I felt very certain" R3H 3
14. (41 : 10:3) "Felt sure" R9D a
15. (43:9:7) "Inward feeling" B5C 3
16. (47:9:7) "Very plain" B4C 6
17. (63:6:7) "Could see card plainly and felt I was right" RioH 3
i& (63 : 10 : 9) "Something told me it was correct" B2S a
etc. for 250 cases. (To balance the other lists.)
These are not hits and are not interesting; their very frequency
seems to make them common and cheap; they never attain sufficient
weight to qualify a generalization, except the suggestion that the condi-
tions essential for telepathy are unknown and can, therefore, be fulfilled
only by accident. Our mental-telepathist has experienced telepathy;
negative cases prove nothing.
experimenter was Black, the Ace of Spades, which, as indicated by Die-spot /,
was held during the critical interval in sharp visual impression. The black-face
typt indicates that the guess was correct with respect to all the elements of the
card — Color, Number, and Suit.
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120
THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE
Then there is this remaining list of often-noticed, but not sufiBcicntly
weired, cases:
(4) Complete Chance Hits.
I. {
[1:1:4)
"Pure Guess"
R7D
I
3.
[1:1:7)
u
M
B8C
5
3. <
[5:4:1)
it
i*
R5H
2
4. ^
[5:5:2)
tt
«
R2D
5
5. <
[5:5:4)
M
«
B5S
4
6. (
[17:7:1)
«
«
B9S
2
7. ^
[21:9:5)
M
N
B9C
4
a (
[25:1:1)
«
«
R9D
3
9. <
[25:2:9)
«
«
R5D
6
10. (
[25:5:5)
M
«
BIOS
4
II.
(27:10:4)
«
«
R4H
3
12. 1
.32:10:5)
«
«
R3H
6
13. <
[37:3:3)
«
«
B4S
6
14. i
[40:6:4)
M
«
B4S
3
15.
[40:6:7)
««
M
R4H
I
16. 4
[42:6:4)
«
<«
R5H
3
17.
[48:6:7)
M
4<
B6C
2
18. <
[50:1:9)
M
«
BIG
2
19. i
[50:7:3)
«
M
RIOH
I
20. 4
[59:2:7)
M
«
B7C
I
31. (
[60:5:3)
M
a
B5S
2
32. (
[60:10:10)
M
«
R9H
3
23. (
[78:7:8)
«
(4
R4D
5
24.
[85:6:1)
«
it
R7H
6
25. <
'91:6:8)
M
€t
RID
4
26. {
[98:3:5)
M
«
B6S
3
There is no "inner experience" of coincidence here ; they are indif-
ferent facts, these chance hits ; coincidence, of course, must happen by
chance quite often. Our searcher for truth observes with a glance and
passes to the enjoyment of recalling "incontestable" cases, validated by
"inner experience."
The reader should not infer, from this application of our experi-
mental results to the normal development of a "Mental-Telepathist,"
that an objective thought-transference is to be altogether discredited.
There are quite a few good men and true who suspect that it is a fact
of nature. He should, rather, especially if he is a "Mental-Telepathist,"
recognize in the method of investigation exemplified in these experi-
ments a way in which telepathy may be indisputably brought to light,
and then suspend his judgment until verifiable proof is produced. Dis-
credit is, indeed, thrown upon the telepathic hypothesis by proponents
who accept "selected" cases as proof. "Selection" is one of some half-
dozen serious errors which cloud the evidence for telepathy.^'*
184 yi^g^ footnote 125, p. 50.
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GUESSING OF PLAYING-CARDS 121
Corneal Reflection.***
In order to have some sets that would illustrate the distribution of
R cases when a known cause operates with chance in a greater or less
degree, it was arranged for one group of students to perform the exper-
iments in Card-Guessing according to a change in method which put
the reagent in possession of a reading telescope through which upon
occasion he could see the reflection of the card upon the cornea of the
left eye of the experimenter. The reagent faced the experimenter across
a table 1.2 meters in width, and was securely screened from him by
black cardboard into which the end of the telescope was fitted. Before
the experimenter tapped the signal announcing the beginning of the
critical interval he adjusted his left eye into alignment with the objective
lens of the telescope through a large lens mounted 10 cm. from his face.
He followed the same procedure that the other experimenters followed,
in the conduct of the experiments, except that when a i-spot or a 5-spot
face was thrown by the die, instead of holding the card drawn in his
hand he placed it in a rack mounted at the left of the large lens. Since
the light from the windows at his back fell freely upon the face of the
card, and his eye was in shadow, a very clear image of the card (about
one-fifth diameter of the card in size) could be got by the reagent in
case he could adjust the focus of the telescope before the end of the
interval. The reagent, being in ignorance of the control of the experi-
ment, was compelled each time to focus his instrument and help out his
guessing as best he could.
Five sets were obtained, and the results are displayed at the end of
Table XIII (C) ;'*• deviations from probability in Table XIV (C) ;**^
R cases and deviations of Set V on die-spots are shown in Table XIX.***
The results of this set were used to illustrate the method of searching
for extra-chance causes of R cases.**®
^••That Corneal Reflection has played a role in experiments in thought-
transference, suggested this particular extra-chance cause. Vide, infra, pp. 174,
214; cf., also, Thomas: Thought Transference, 1905, p. 28; and Podmore: Ap-
paritions and Thought-Transference, 1894, p. 12.
i«« Supra, p. 62.
i«^ Supra, p. 63.
iM Supra, p. 68.
»•» Supra, pp. 67 ff .
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122
THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE
The aggregate results are distributed over the die-spots in the fol-
lowing table:
TABLE L.
Corneal Reflection. R Cases distributed over the Die-Spott.
Card Not Imaged
Card Color No. Suit W Tot
3 32 12 22 37 76
3 44 10 20 29 77
I 43 10 22 43 92
Die
4
6
Card Imaged
Die Card Color No. Suit
64 98 88 70
5 41 II 19
43 63 S3 so
/
3
S
W Tot
2 lOI
42 86
4
Touls 7 118 32 64 109 24s
68
112 202 IS2 139 43 2SS
Per Cent
Die Card Color No. Suit W
^ 395 42.1 15.8 29.0 48.7
4 3.90 57.1 13.0 26.0 37.6
6 1.09 45.6 10.9 23.9 46.7
Totals 2.86 48.1 13. 1 26.1 44.5
Die Card Color No. Suit W
/ 634 97.1 87.2 694 2.0
3 5.8 47.7 12.8 22.1 48.8
5 63.2 92.7 78.0 73.5 5.9
43.9 79.1 595 54.S 18.8
Deviation from Probability, Per Cent
Die Card Color No. Suit W
^ +145 -7.9 +5.8 +4.0 -^s-?
4 +140 +7.1 +3.0 +1.0 -74
6 -1 .41 -44 40.9 -1.1 +1.7
Totab +0.36 -1.9 +3.1 +1.1 -0.5
Limit of Chance Deviation
Die Card Color No. Suit W
/ +60.90 +47.1 477.2 +444 -43.0
3 +3.30 -2.3 +2.8 -0.9 +3.8
3 +^.70 +42.7 4^0 +48.S -39.1
+4140 +29.1 +49.5 +29.5 -26.2
^15 ^13.3 ^.0 ±11.5 ii3^
Here some cause operated more or less effectively in one-third of
the experiments, or in two-thirds of the "Card Imaged" experiments.
By comparison of the deviations in Table XIV (C)^*^ with Table
XLI "^ it may be seen that on the "Card" and on "Number" (Card
Imaged) the deviations in all sets are above the theoretical limit of
diance ; on "Color" and on "Suit" Sets //, III, and V, fall below, the
reagents having found some difficulty in determination and having to
guess more often. If the aggregate results are compared with the theo-
retical limit of chance (in the above table, last two lines), however, all
deviations on the "Card Imaged" side exceed the latter considerably.
Two reagents graded their judgments: Reagent / gave 5 A*s, 6 B%
1*0 Supra, p. 63.
"1 Supra, p. 89.
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Grade
Card
Color
No.
Suit
A
100
100
100
100
B
100
100
100
100
C
43
100
100
43
D
100
100
100
0
GUESSING OF PLAYING-CARDS 123
7 Cs, and 2 Z>'s, all on die-spots / or 5, with the following result in per
cent of R cases:
W
o
o
o
o
Reagent V, who had greater difficulty with the apparatus, gave 11
high grades, the aggregate R cases of which exceeding the probable per
cent as follows: n a r a xt c * w
Card Color No. Suit W
Deviation, Per Cent +24.5 +41 +35 +30 -36
This material is of service principally in illustrating our method
of statistical inquiry, which it vindicates in showing that confident judg-
ments fall upon odd die-spots and correlate with R cases and that the
latter also are correlated."*
Conclusion.
The majority of students in our large general courses in psychology
are favorably disposed toward the telepathic hypothesis. The results of
10,000 guesses of cards made by 100 reagents selected from these classes
because of their favorable attitude, working in laboratory partnership
with experimenters likewise selected, show
(i) That 73% of the reagents graded some of their guesses high,
indicating that they expected those particular guesses to stand a much
better chance of being right than "pure guesses" would stand;
(2) That 18% of all the guesses were graded high;
(3) That causes of the high grades lie in various forms of sensory
and motor automatisms which in their concrete expressions testify to
the occurrence of the "inner experience" of thought-transference here
in our laboratory;
(4) That various statistical treatments of the data fail to reveal
any cause beyond chance operating for R cases, whether the guesses are
graded high or low;
^•*An amusing incident occurred when Experimenter IV returned his re-
sults, and since it illustrates the power of a few chance hits to break down scien-
tific reserve it may be worthy of record. He said that after the experiments were
concluded he learned by checking up results that the reagent's telescope often
revealed in his eye the card he was thinking of (die-spot 3 determining the con-
cealing of the card and holding it in kinaesthetic imagery), and thought there must
be some way by which his imagery escaped through his organs of vision.
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124 THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE
(5) That the "inner experience" of thought-transference occurs
indifferently in control and regular experiments and with Wrong and
Right cases ;
(6) That the determinations of values derived from theoretical
probability are closely approximated by those derived from inductive
probability, as afforded by our Control experiments, and are as satisfac-
tory as the latter for comparison with the values derived from the
Regular experiments for the purpose of testing the latter for an influ-
ence beyond chance working for R cases ;
(7) That the deviations of neither the single values nor the distri-
butions of the Regular experiments exceed chance, either theoretical or
empirical; and consequently
(8) That no trace of an objective thought-transference is found
either as a capacity shared in a low degree by our normal reagents in
general (Richet's "Suggestion Mentale") or as a capacity enjoyed in
perceptible measure by any of the individual normal reagents.
These negative results, together with those found by the Ameri-
can "* and the British ^'^ societies for psychical research, may be taken
to indicate that the normal person who has telepathic power is relatively
rare, as has been surmised by Sir Oliver Lodge,^®*^ and that the telepathic
experience, if it occurs at all, probably occurs only when the mind is in
a "critical" state — a principle suggested by James.^®*
108 'These returns [of the experiments conducted under the guidance of the
American Committee] have been subjected to a careful mathematical analysis by
Professors Peirce and Pickering. A study of their special report on this subject
(Appendix B., pp. 17-34) shows that the general result of these experiments is, at
present, unfavorable to thought-transference as a power belonging to mankind in
general." (Commitee on Thought-Transference, June 4, 1885, Proceedings Am. S.
P.R., Series i, 1:8).
i»* Vide, quotation from Thomas, and from the Journal S. P. R., supra, pp. 23,.
26 ; cf., Thomas : Thought Transference, pp. 180 ff .
i^*^ "Clearly, most persons are opaque to telepathic impulses." Lodge : The
attitude of science to the unusual. The Nineteenth Century and After, February
1909, 65:215.
i»6 "Professor Richet's supposition that if the unexplained thing called thought-
transference be ever real, its causes must, to some degree, work in everybody at
all times (so that in any long series of card-guessings, for example, there ought
always to be some excess of right answers above the chance number) is, I am
inclined to think, not very well substantiated. Thought-transference may involve
a critical point, as the physicists call it, which i$ passed only when certain psychic
conditions are realized, and otherwise not reached at all— just as a big conflagra-
tion will break out at a certain temperature, below which no conflagration what-
ever, big or little, can occur."— James : Address by the President. Proceedings
S.P.R., 1896-97, 12:3-4.
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GUESSING OF PLAYING-CASDS 125
SERIES II. REAGENTS "SENSITIVE."
Series II of this investigation was undertaken for the purpose of
determining by like methods how the results from "psychics," or per-
sons reputed to be "sensitive" to telepathic or clairvoyant impressions,
would diflfer from those obtained from normal reagents. The experi-
ments followed the same general procedure, the card being drawn at
random from a constantly reshuffled pack of 40, and its treatment being
determined by the numbers cast by a die. During the critical interval
the card was held unknown to the experimenter if an even number had
been cast, entertained in keen visual perception upon the casting of die-
spot /, in keen kinaesthetic imagery (of the vocal organs) upon the
casting of die-spot j, in combined visual perception, kinaesthetic image-
ry, and auditory imagery, upon the casting of die-spot 5. The writer
acted as experimenter (agent) (except for Sets 8 and 9) and recorded
the introspections of the reagents (percipients) which his questions
prompted ; an associate recorded the judgments or guesses.
The Reagents.
The 10 reagents were "psychics." One was a student, who, how-
ever, has had remarkable psychical experiences. The others lived in
cities or towns within a hundred miles of the University. Three were
private persons who possessed sensory and motor automatisms regarded
as psychical. The first five were spiritistic mediums. The work of the
"loth psychic" was in reality done by five additional spiritistic mediums,
four of whom were unable to complete the set of experiments, and an
automatic writer. The attitude of all the psychics toward the telepathic
hypothesis was favorable: they had no opinion upon it; they had
knowledge. The mediums do not belong to the class of clairvoyants
who establish offices in the business district of the city, display osten-
tatiously a certificate of ordination into an hypothetical spiritualistic
church, and by trick and device prey upon the public. They have a
sincere and an abiding faith in their mediumship, which they practice
semi-professionally, bringing consolation to the stricken, peace to the
troubled, answers to the questioning. They were somewhat more than
interested in a decisive method of portraying some of the real facts in
their experience, especially before the eyes of science, and gave their
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126
THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE
time and effort to the research without pay.**^ It should be noted that
they are mothers of families, most of them own their homes, some of
them are known in the literature of psychical research, several of them
have traveled abroad and appeared before investigating bodies, and at
least one of them has given seances before courts in Europe. One of
them appeared before the Seybert Conunission of the University of
Pennsylvania.
The Results.
The gross number of R cases (right judgments) is given in Table
XIII (S) ;*•• the deviations of the sets, after reduction to sets of 50,
are shown in Table XIV (B) ;^** and the deviation of the per cent of
R cases, for the series, is shown in Table XVII.**® The distribution of
R cases over the die-spots, the per cent of R cases, and the deviation of
the per cent of R cases from the Probable per cent, are given in
Psychics.
TABLE LI.
Distribution of R Gises over the Die-Spots.
Card Not Imaged
Card Imaged
Die-
Spot Card Color
No.
Suit
W
Tot.
Die-
Spot Card Color
No.
Suit
W
Tot
^ 4
4 3
6 4
77
7S
80
12
16
IS
42
47
41
75
65
74
156
150
164
/ 8 100
J 8 78
5 2 99
21
21
15
46
41
51
85
67
72
195
154
181
Tot. 11
232
43
130
214
470
18 277
57
138
224
530
Per Cent of R Cases.
2 2.6
4 2.0
6 24
494
50.0
48.8
7.7
10.7
91
26.9
31.3
25.0
48.1
43.3
45.1
/ 4.1 51.3
3 5.2 50.6
5 I.I 54.9
10.8
13.6
8.3
23.6
26.6
28.2
43.6
43.5
39.8
Tot. 2.34
49.3
9.1
27.6
45.5
3.40 52^
10.8
26.2
42.3
Deviation from the Probable Per Cent.
2- +0.1
4 -0.5
6 -0.1
-0.6
0.0
-1.2
-2.3
■K).7
-0.9
+1.9
46.3
0.0
+3.1
-1.7
-K).i
/ +1.6 +1.3
S +2.7 -K).6
5 -14 +4.9
+0.8
+3.6
-1.7
-14
+1.6
+3.2
-14
-1.5
-5.2
Tot.*-o.i6
-0.7
-0.9
+2.6
40.5
40.90 +2.3
40.8
+1.0
-2.7
♦This deviation of the per cent of the total R cases from the probable per
cent corresponds to the last line in Table XVII, supra, p. 65.
i»TThe writer wishes to acknowledge here the courtesies extended to him,
both by these "psychics" and by the members of the California Psychical Research
Society. The president of the Society performed a valuable service in making
appointments and in recording judgments in the experimentation; and the
laboratory of the Society supplied a real need.
iM Supra, p. 62. "• Supra, p. 63. *^ Supra, p. 65.
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GUESSING OF PLAYING-CARDS • 127
The deviations from the probable per cent in this table do not in-
dicate an obvious advantage of any odd number of die-spots over an-
other, but they reveal some advantage of the odd over the even, which
is somewhat accentuated if we segregate the professional from the pri-
vate psychics:
Deviations of Per Cent of R Cases from the Probable Per Cent.
Card Not Imaged Card Imaged
Card Color No. Suit W Card Color No. Suit W
Professional -0.85 -0.2 -14 +0.5 -0.2 +2.17 +2.9 +17 +1^ -3.0
Private +0.58 -I.I -0.3 +5.0 +1.3 -0.89 +1.6 -0.1 40.3 -2.5
Should this advantage prove significant we shall at last have found
thought-transference among the professional psychics.
The deviations of the total in Table LI are comparable with those
given in Table XVII,*®* with which they may be compared. The +0.90
on "Card" is less than half the corresponding deviation (+2.23) of the
"Card Not Imaged" experiments of the 7th 1000; and the remaining
deviations are each exceeded by their corresponding deviations in the
same 1000, which are regarded as empirical chance deviations. If we
compare the deviations with the theoretical limit of chance deviation, as
given for sets of 500 in Table XLI ^^^ (+2.96, +9.5, +5.7, +8.2), we again
find them much exceeded.
The deviations of aggregated results of the professional psychics
must be estimated in terms of a set of 250, for comparison with em-
pirical and theoretical chance deviations. If we find the deviations of
the per cent of R cases from the Probable per cent for two consecutive
groups of five entries in Table XIII,*®* on the "Card Not Imaged" side,
say sets 61-65, and 66-70, we shall then have some empirical chance de-
viations comparable to the deviations of the professional psychics; and
if we add, in the lower line, the theoretical limit of chance deviation in
a set of 250 (from Table L),*®* we get the following table:
Deviations in Per Cent.
Card Color No. Suit W
Sets 61-65 +2.54 +4.2 +24 +5.0 -34
Sets 66-70 +I.93 +20 +3.6 +5.8 -i.o
Professional Psychics +2.17 +29 +1.7 +18 -3.0
Theoretical Limit ^4.15 ±13.3 iS.o ±1 1.5 ±1.^2
«oi Supra, p. 65.
2o« Supra, p. 89.
«o» Supra, p. 60.
«o* Supra, p. 122.
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128 THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE
In each rubric is the psychics' deviation exceeded by empirical
chance deviation, as well as by the theoretical limit of chance deviation.
Then, if we turn back to the Psychics' R cases (in Table Xllla [S ],*<>•
where they are reduced to sets of 50) and compare them with the distri-
bution of chance occurrences of R cases shown in Plates V ff.,*^ we
may determine just how likely they are to occur by chance. In the fol-
lowing table
R = the largest number of R cases made in a set (of 50) by a psychic.
jr=the corresponding deviation from the probable number.
a = the Standard Deviation, or index of variability, of the Distribution of R
cases in the "Card Not Imaged" experiments of the Normal Reagents; it
is calculated from the probable number, not from the mean.
X
— = the "Index of Abmodality" (Vide, Davenport, op. cit., p. 23).
cr
2^^^ =the number of cases in a distribution of R cases resulting from chance
which lie in the positive side of the distribution forther from the probable
number than the given deviation does.'<>^ Total equals 1000 cases.
Pj = Inductive Probability, from the Tables XLIII-XLVI,*o« Column C, Ex-
actly X, indicating the nimiber of cases in 100 that x was exceeded by, in
our empirical chance series.
P = Theoretical Probability,*^^* showing the number of cases in 1000 that x
may be expected to be exceeded by, in positive chance variations.
TABLE LII.
The Largest Positive Deviations of the Professional Psychics, related to the Nor-
mal Distribution of R Cases calculated from empirical and theoretical chance.
Card (Reagent 3) 4 +2.75 1.22 2.25 12. 2. 7.
Color (Reagent 5) 29 +4.0 4.11 0.90 184. 16. 129.
Number (Reagent 2) 8 +3.0 2.16 1.39 82. 5. 79-
Suit (Reagent 5) 18 +5.5 314 I7S 40. 6. 36.
This table shows that the largest positive deviation in number of
R cases on the "Card," (+2.75%), made by Reagent j, in a set of 50
experiments, may be expected to be exceeded by chance in 12 out of 1000
*o» Appendix A.
*o« Supra, pp. 99 ff.
*®^ These values are derived from a table of values of the normal probability
integral (Davenport, op. cit, pp. 119 ff.).
«o» Supra, pp. 97 ff.
ao9 Found from Davenport's table of values of the probability integral for
x/a (op. cit., pp. 119 ff.), the theoretical value of o being: cr= Vpqn, (Vide, Yule:
An Introduction to the Theory of Statistics, 1916, p. 262.)
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GUESSING OF PLAYING-CAKDS 129
sets; that it was exceeded twice in the distribution of R cases in lOO
sets of "Card Not Imaged" experiments by Normal Reagents ;*^® and
that, theoretically, it may be expected to be exceeded by chance in 7 out
of 1000 sets.
It is evident that no extra-normal capacity for thought-transfer-
ence, or for lucidity, is perceptible in the results of the individual pro-
fessional psychics.
Remarks made occasionally by the psychics raised the question of
the possibility of a retarded influence which would show in the coinci-
dence not of the card and judgment of a given experiment but of the
card of one experiment and the judgment of the following experiment
or the second following experiment; or of a capacity for prescience
which would be shown in the coincidence of the card of a given experi-
ment and the judgment of a preceding experiment. (In case the
^'forces" controlled the experimenter in drawing the card, as a prom-
inent psychic suggested, the statistical equivalent of prescience would
be revealed in the results.)
These hypotheses can now be tested. R cases were tabulated, and
the following deviations from the probable per cent found:
TABLE LIII.
Psychics. Coincidence between the Gird Drawn and the Preceding, Succeeding,
and Second Succeeding Judgments. Deviations from the Probable Per Cent.
Card Not Imaged Card Imaged
Card Color No. Suit W Card Color No. Suit W
Preceding Judgment.. +0.28 -27 -H).8 -0.8 +2.3 ■K).88 +0.8 +1.6 +24 -0.7
1st Succeeding " ..-0.67 -1.8 40.3 -14 +15 -025 -35 "M -16 +3-6
2d " " .. 40.28 +1.8 -0.8 +4.1 -i-S -0.62 -0.5 -2.5 +1.1 +1.3
Coincidences— pj^.^^ ^^ Experiments. Second 50 Experiments.
Between Guesses 0.30 +3.8 +3.0 +1.0 -5.6 -0.70 -0.6 -1.6 -K).2 +1.0
Drawings . . . 40.89 4o.2 4-1.2 40.2 40.6 -042 40.7 -13 +2.6 -0.5
Limit of Chance Deviation ±4.15 ^^3-3 ^8.0 ±11.5 ±132
The size of the deviations, fairly uniform with that of coincidences
between guesses, or between drawings of different sets, and in no case
equal to as much as half the limit of chance deviation, supports no other
inference than that chance has not been interfered with in the occur-
210 yide, Table XLIII (p. 97), column C, "Occurrence of Numbers, Ex-
acdy X."
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130
THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE
rence of R cases, and, consequently, that neither tardy telepathic influ-
ence nor capacity for prescience is apparent in our results.
It is altogether probable that the results of the psychics differ in
no essential respect from those of normal reagents or from either em-
pirical or theoretical chance, and that neither telepathic nor clairvoyant
capacity has been revealed, whether such capacity is regarded as shared
by the psychics in general or as possessed by an individual, especially
sensitive, psychic.
Should the consistency of the positive deviations of the professional
psychics over the probable per cents of R cases be regarded as indica-
tive of a small degree of telepathic capacity, the way remains open for
conclusive proof: a continuation of experiments in sufficient number
to lower the limit of chance deviation below the positive deviations.
Psychological Analysis of Experience.
The Professional Psychics,
Reagent / gave her judgments upon three kinds of impressions,
one Visual, and two Auditory. The visual consists of clear imagery of
the card located before the eyes about reading distance ; the first audi-
tory consists of a "voice speaking in the head." This voice is not her
own but that of a young girl about i6 years of age, and the psychic is
inclined to identify it as that of "A ," *" a "control" who has been
with her, in psychic manifestations, about four and a half years. The
second auditory impression is described as a silent voice, which, how-
ever, is not accompanied by sensations in the throat. The work was
done in the natural state involving the same processes as used in "circle"
work. She also works in trance, getting raps, tipping, automatic voices,
etc. She is inclined to place less confidence in her work done in the
normal state.
Reagent 2 received visual and auditory impressions of a quite vari-
able nature. Sometimes she saw the card clearly; sometimes luminous
imagery introduced the card imagery, as "Saw (clairvoyantly) two
bright spots, in them two hearts" (2: i),"' or the light appeared in the
middle of the card in blinding intensity so that at first the spots could
not be clearly seen (10:2). Sometimes the lights were all that were
seen (6:5). After v:6 she described in detail the features of an old
man who was holding a card ; and after 4 : 10 she described a heavy-set,
2" The designations of these controls have no orthographical relation to the
real names, since it is intended that the psychics remain incognito.
212 Second series of 10 experiments ; first experiment.
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GUESSING OF PLAYING-CASDS 131
whiskered man, who was holding the experimenter's hand trying to
guide it in drawing the card. The room, she said, was full of spirits,
and progress with the cards was impeded. The auditory impression is
like a whisper, except that the volume is great ; is like the sound of the
sea-shell. This voice sometimes inmiediately after a judgment was
given said "wrong," and the psychic was inclined to think that the voice
was right but could not herself be positive (3:1. It was right for color
and suit). Curiously the card in 1 14 which was "known" was wholly
missed, and the next one, i : 5, which drew the only "pure guess" in the
100 experiments, was completely hit. The psychic has lived in her own
home for years, has grandchildren, and has held sittings weekly for
twenty years. She is intelligent, and frankly enthusiastic at the pros-
pect of finally proving something.
Reagent 3 was able to give her judgments grades, according to the
vividness of the impression, but, unfortunately, many were low; and
there were many pure guesses:
A B C D PG
I 14 16 13 56
The 15 highly-graded judgments fall upon 10 "Cards Not Imaged"
and 5 "Cards Imaged," and yield in R cases. Card o. Color 60%, Num-
ber o. Suit 33%, and Wrong 40%. Card imagery was uncertain and
capricious, showing colored backs, only parts of the face, the card in
motion, blank cards, etc., consequently many judgments were satisfac-
tory only in a single particular. Gathering such judgments together we
have *"
1 : 2 Black, spots blurred, card moving B8S 3
2:8 Pure guess except as to color, seemed to look over experimenter's
shoulder R2H 3
3 : 1 Saw spade, but the spots were out of order B38 6
3:3 Red; 3 spots on left, i on right R7H 5
5:10 pnly "Spades," "3" is a guess R6D 6
6:7 "Qubs" only B2S 6
9:4 Guess on number B7S 1
10:10 Guessed number R7D 1
**• To interpret first line : In second experiment of first series (of 10 experi-
ments) the card drawn was Blade, the Eight of Spades; it was held in Kin.
imagery (Die-spot 3) ; the psychic's guess was right as to C3olor (black-face type) ;
her experience is indicated in the phrase recorded after the experiment-number.
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132 THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE
A comparison of the imagery with the cards drawn and with the die-
spots shows four hits out of the eight cases, and the complete card
guessed was not imaged by the experimenter.
Impressions came mostly in visual form; sometimes in impulse to
speak; twice the name was simply "impressed," once 3rielding a com-
plete miss, once a complete hit ; and once the name of the card came
as a whisper (9:3, B^S, card held in visual impression was B4S).
There was much other imagery, chiefly visual, not relating to the cards :
once (9:9) the 2-spot face of the die was seen when the i-spot had
been thrown ; other imagery was a side view of a life-size statue, sitting
position (2:6), a big bronze hinge (2:9), a cabinet 15 inches square
of dark metal and encircled with a one-half-inch band of light (2:10),
a white disc (3:5), a United States flag at half mast and a crowd of
people (3:6), the figure of Lincoln (3:6), searchlight and ship and a
wreath of white roses (3:7), a white upright panel, 5 feet by 2 feet
(3:9), a brass jardiniere and a papyrus plant (3:10), a blue bird
(4:2), an arch (4:3), a mountain waterfall (5:2), a flood with furni-
ture in water in Ohio (5:3), ice and W. T. Stead (8:9), rugged
ocean shore (8: 10), Prince Albert monument (9:2), Minnehaha Falls
frozen (10:6).
The psychic is recognized by those having discriminating judgment
in such matters as one of the most reliable medituns in the country, and
has held select circles for many years.
Reagent 4 gave judgments from visual impressions; her guide
"B " shows her the card ; very few pure guesses were made. The
work of the experimenters was punctuated by conununications from
"B ", who longed for loftier service. This interesting personality
informed us that she was "American bom East" and had been "in spirit
long time." To show us her power over space she paid a swift visit to
the moon and in a moment reported that it was very cold there, an at-
mosphere different from ours, no wind, heavy-like fog but clear; there
were great crevices and a huge crater in which she saw blue mineral.
She impelled her medium, upon another occasion, to give the following
message: "I see two little men, one signing his name to a paper; an
'S' about it; a little trouble." Thinking, perhaps, that some service of
a more definite nature might be offered, she invited the experimenter to
ask for any information about affairs in which he was interested; and
in reply to the question "Will the new course continue next year?" she
advised to "go ahead," but intimated that there might be financial trouble,
a dark-haired man was jealous, and that diplomacy would be expedient.
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GUESSING OF PLAYING-CASDS 133
She then suddenly queried, "Who is Ferguson, light, pretty hands,
dresses well, clean: he seems to have some connection with this ques-
tion." She looked ahead some eight months to the latter part of August
(1914) and saw the experimenter in outing flannek with a steamer rug;
saw the steamer; said he was going on a mission to Greece, or Egypt
perhaps; that there was a party being made up,— quite a number; that
he was not going alone; that it was not advisable for him to be much
alone; he gives out too much magnetism; he needs people about him,
that he may enjoy their magnetism. She was emphatic in her assertion
that it does not make any difference to her seeing the card whether the
experimenter has it in his mind in any way, and that telepathy is a fact
between people, between people and spirits, and between spirits.
The psychic has been holding circles for about seven years.
Reagent 5 gave her judgments from visual and auditory impres-
sions. During the visual impression the card is shown to her by her
"forces," sometimes in bright and sometimes in dark background For
the auditory impression a "neuter" voice, like intuition, speaks within
her head. When a card is but dimly seen the voice names it; often
after the voice has named a card it is shown her for visual verification.
Sometimes three or four cards are shown at once and upon her asking
"Which one?" one is either shown or named. The auditory impression
is preferred, for that is the form in which her inspirational lectures
come. There were no pure guesses. Confidence that the judgments
were right was variable, but was higher, as a whole, on the second and
third days' work (experiments 31-100). A very complete report was
given of the form of imagery of the impression, permitting tabulation,
and since the auditory form was preferred we may determine whether
the preferred impressions (46 cases) are correlated more than the
others with R cases:
Card Color No. Suit
Auditory, Per Cent 24 54 4.3 41
Probable, " " 3.5 50 10 25
Deviation -o.i +4 -5.7 +16
The deviation on Suit alone is large, and over half of it comes from R
cases on "Cards Not Imaged" ; if it were considered significant, its sup-
port for telepathy would amount to +13, and for clairvoyance or lucidity
+20. But in view of the limit of chance deviation, for so short a series,
being much larger (+27), and of the moderate deviation of the per cent
of R cases for the complete set (+10, with limit of chance = +184),*"
*^ide, Tabic XLI, set of 100, p. 8p, supra.
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134 THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE
no positive identification of a cause beyond chance can be made; per-
haps a case for further experiment may be admitted, especially since
the introspection on one of the cards completely hit (9:8) was "Beauti-
ful light around it; thought I was looking; first with light; ray seemed
like a search-light" (the card had been held in kinaesthetic imagery by
the experimenter), although the judgment on the only other card com-
pletely hit was delivered before signal, while the experimenter was still
shufiling the pack and had not yet drawn the card.
Other ''messages" besides judgments of cards came: at the end
of the second day's work we were informed that between us (the ex-
perimenter and his recorder), with a hand on the shoulder of each»
stood Andrew Jackson Davis who wished to speak to us. He said^
"Boys, this is not the highest way ; get into the soul of things ; greater
things than this shall ye do. Both of you are in the soul of things more
than you understand. This is the A, B, C you are working on now. I
see it is very good; but not to your souls. You are on a higher rung
than this will ever take you." The psychic said that the force was so
strong about her that she could not get back to the cards, and continued :
"He wants you to take up the higher principles. You must go right
into the center — it's the very spring of life. The Mighty Highest gave
different principles in a different way. I will give you some of the
principles of life and tell you how God works. He works through per-
fect law and order and you got to come into perfect law and order to
get the manifestations you are seeking. Just as the artist must have his
tools so must every soul ; it must come into possession of the principles
of life before you can get what you seek. These things— every prob-
lem in the universe — can be demonstrated just as surely as a mathemat-
ical problem. You must get into this through your different powers.
The principles of mathematics will work out every problem in the uni-
verse. Fire, air, earth, and water are the fundamental principles ; seven
notes of music, seven colors, etc. Everything must commence with the
inner and then work to the outer. We got to learn the which and the
what before we can handle these forces. Then we can do greater things
than we have ever done. The room is full of spirits, very learned, very
high order." "•
One of the professional activities of the psychic is "psychometriz-
ing," (she is an enthusiastic follower of Joseph Rodes Buchanan), and
after the set of one hundred experiments had been completed she asked
s^'From the experimenter's shorthand notes, essentially verbatim.
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GUESSING OF PLAYING-CASDS 135
that she might try an experiment so modified as to accommodate it to
the conditions of this psychic activity. Consequently a card was drawn
at random from the pack and, without its being known to anyone, placed
in the card-box. After holding the box in her hand for a few minutes,
and touching with her fingers the card within (her eyes being closed),
she "sensed" the Five of Spades. It was the Nine of Hearts, as she im-
mediately afterward learned. She said that one can be deceived by
spirits, that he could not rely upon their impressions until he has learned
by experience that they are true.
This psychic is sincere, and believes that the impressions are
"given," but she is naturally somewhat uneasy because of the possibility
of accurate check upon her impressions. This process, however, is es-
sential, if the pertinence or force is to be removed from the agnostic's
question : "Has she probably acquired confidence because of a few lucky
hits, being shielded by the nature of many of the impressions which
precludes accurate check, or the absence of a systematic check of such
impressions as would permit it?" She has had automatic writing, but
now confines herself to "psychometry" and the delivery of inspirational
lectures on the Laws of Life. She has been actively engaged in psychic
work for forty years.
Reagent /Oj, a veteran in the psychic world, took ten experiments
in which she made six pure guesses, and three judgments, two from an
impulse to speak ( i : 3,9) and one from an "impression" (1:8); after
two respective judgments (1:8,9) she remarked, "No, Tm wrong."
The only judgment not repudiated was right in color only. She had
other impressions : a queer feeling in her back and the back of her head
came from that pack of cards ; she saw an old lady, very sick, "belong-
ing" to the experimenter; also a canopy, which symbolizes death; and
at 11:47 A.M. she saw a telegram on its way to the experimenter; it
had reference to the sick woman. She saw other relatives of the experi-
menter who were in spirit life and had been attracted to the laboratory,
and she gave their names : Mary A., D , Carrie, Mary, John, Mary
Elizabeth who had been called in earth-life Betsy, etc. The pure
guesses on the cards were superior in R cases, although below the prob-
able number, to the other impressions, for the latter were complete
misses.
Reagent 1O29 a psychic of long experience, but now confining her-
self chiefly to inspirational lecturing, took thirty experiments. Her im-
pressions came in visual and auditory imagery and "impressions."
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136 THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE
There were only three guesses, but they were as successful as the judg-
ments ; there were no complete hits.
Reagent /Oj, an automatic writer, took ten experiments. His im-
pressions came in kinaesthetic and visual imagery. His best judgment
(1:5) was right in color and suit. The only complete hit was a guess.
He had other impressions: discussed at some length a page missing
from a book and three people supposed to be involved in its disappear-
ance or in the experimenter's suspicion.
Reagent /O4, a professional psychic for four years, took ten ex-
periments, and all were pure guesses. She had much visual imagery,
however : sees a beautiful star ; a dark cloud underneath (1:1); a
beautiful golden cross, white light tmdemeath (1:2); a carriage
(1:4); blue light and white light; red picture with gold in it (1:5);
purple light, beautiftd, with stars (1:6); boat on water; all men
dressed in white, teachers of high order, coming towards experimenter;
have lanterns in hands (1:7); two ladies on a golden road; one with
a beautiful light about her head, pointing her finger toward the experi-
menter in whom she seems interested (i : 10).
Reagent /O5, a psychic of three years' experience, took twenty-three
experiments. Her impressions came in auditory or visual imagery, and
she gave six judgments the highest grade for certainty ; two were com-
plete misses, three had suits right, and one the number. She gave ten
second grades, one of these being the only complete hit.
Reagent 10^, a psychic of a few years' experience and now very
active, took the remaining 17 experiments of the tenth set. Her im-
pressions came in auditory form in her right ear, recognized as the
voice of her control, "E ." The judgments in all characteristics of
the card were much below the probable number.
It must be remarked that these experiments differ considerably from
any of the practices to which the professional psychics are accustomed,
and that, as already stated, they acted as reagents in their alleged normal
state. Several of them have stated that they would have to "sit for de-
velopment" for this particular sort of work before they could do it per-
fectly. In appraising the results, therefore, these imperfections of the
investigation should receive cpnsideration ; but they should not exclude
other considerations which would seem sufficient to qualify the present
series of experiments as a fair preliminary survey of mediumistic ca-
pacity in psychical, as contrasted with i^iysical, phenomena. The psy-
chics, soon after a sitting began, uniformly entered an hypnoidal, semi-
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GUESSING OF PLAYING-CARDS 137
trance state, quite comparable, so far as the experimenter could judge,
to the state in which they do much of their professional work; they
often recognized impressions as coming from their "forces" or "con-
trols" and were almost uniformly expectant of statistical justification
for their faith in the impressions, although they made no distinction
between the "Card Not Imaged" and the "Card Imaged" conditions of
the experiment; on accotmt of the novelty of the work they did not
expect all of their impressions to be made with sufficient skill to be
perfect throughout. It would seem that the conditions of experiment
were excellent, in spite of the novelty of the material, for engaging
that capacity which reports in "messages" the location of a lost article,
the richness of the ore in a distant prospect, or the state of the sitter's
liver, since here the report was made on the color, number, and form
of the spots on a card, the face of which was always exposed to the
free air, either in the view of the experimenter or under the inverted
pack held in his hand. The sittings occurred on three or four days, a
week apart, amid surroundings similar to those in which the psychics
conducted their customary work. If telepathic or clairvoyant processes
occur in the psychic's activities, in a state short of the deep trance, or
of a moment of critical experience (suspected by James *^* to be the
essential condition), recognizable traces of it should have been found,
it seems reasonable to infer, in our results.
The Private Psychics,
Reagent 6 received impressions in both auditory and visual forms;
the auditory form consisted of a feminine vocalized voice speaking close
behind the head and naming the card at once, as, "Eight of Diamonds" ;
the visual form presented the card, usually only the upper left comer of
it, about reading distance from the face, as, the number "8", then a spot
of Diamonds. The judgments were graded as to certainty, and there
were but seven guesses in the set :
B C PG
Number 80 13 7
Per Cent of R Cases in B Judgments.
Card Color No. Suit
3.8 41.3 7.5 23.8
Deviation +1.3 -8.7 -2.5 -1.2
The highly graded judgment occurs indiflFerently in the "Card Not
«*• Proceedings S. P. R., 1896-7, 12 : 4. Vide, quotation in footnote 196, p. 124,
supra.
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138 THOUGHT-TKANSFERENCE
Imaged" and die ''Card Imaged" experiments, and it is not more reliable
than the others. No relation is found between the mode of imagery
and either the form of experiment or R cases.
The reagent has sat much in circles for development, has had auto-
matic writing and psychometry.
Reagent J received impressions in three forms: the auditory is a
voice more delicate than a whisper, located at the tympanum of the ear,
is very distinct, positive, and certain; kinesthetic impulse to speak,
perhaps under ''Indian control" ; visual imagery of card in natural size,
bright color, without distinct edges, located about reading distance from
the face, on white background. The impressions are bare perceptions,
having no meaning in card evaluation. Usually the imagery was in
complementary form, not coordinated: as, visual for color, auditory
for number, kinesthetic for suit. The condition of the psychic during
experiment is a semi-trance, the controlling influence repeatedly mani-
festing itself in automatisms of hands and body. Certainty and vividness
of impression are pretty constantly correlated, and since 78 of the judg-
ments were given the highest grade the deviation of per cent of R cases
from the probable per cent for the set *^^ is sufficient to show no relation
between certainty and R cases. The three complete hits occurred in
"Card Not Imaged" experiments. Two impressions were especially
remarked because of special conditions (7: 10 and 10:5) ; the judgments
were both right in color, one in suit.
The reagent has sat much in circles for development and recognizes
control ; is reputed to have healing power.
Reagent 8 was a student who has had remarkable psychic experi-
ences ; he is intelligent, mature, a man of aflFairs, and a firm believer in
occult phenom«ia. He is naturally introspective, and was able to g^ve
a very good account of his mental experience during the experiments.
Most of his imagery was visual (35 cases) ; it was located usually less
than a meter (sometimes as much as five meters) straight ahead, upon
an uneven, foggy, distant background, sometimes luminous; it begins
to show at about mid-interval and develops fairly quickly; if effort, is
necessary for its development, certainy of its value is lowered; its
"flashing out" is more certain. His auditory imagery (4 cases) was
not in a recognized voice, and had musical quality. Apart from some
kinsesthetic impressions (8 cases) the rest of the cases were devoid of
impressions. Certainty of judgment was dependent upon visual impres-
sion, vividness, distinctness, quickness, and persistence of imagery, sup-
«"C/., Table XIV, (B), Reagent 7, p. 63, supra.
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GUESSING OF PLAYING-CAHDS 139
plemented by a "hunch" which cannot be defined ; it is merely a feeling
of certainty.
The grading of certainty was definite:
B C D PG
Giscs 6 II 31 52
The six highly graded guesses occurred in both "Card Not Imaged"
and "Card Imaged" experiments, and fell below the probable number in
R cases. Although the reagent did not consider the experimental condi-
tions best for searching for occult phenomena, he candidly, on the basis
of his experience in this set, expected an excess over chance in R cases,
as is shown by the following deviations from the probable per cent:
Card Color No. Suit
Expected +2.50 +20. +25. +20.
Actual +2.50 +3. 42. +7.
Limit of chance ♦ 4^.63 42i. +13. +18.
Of the five complete hits, four occurred in "Card Imaged" experi-
ments ; two were given the lowest grade and three were guesses.
Upon one occasion (6:5) there was a distinct visual image of a
die, six spots up, two on the nearer side; the two-spot had been cast.
Other imagery frequently occurred: outline of a spot of clubs, about
three times the size of a card (2:5) ; a series of regularly arranged
cards moving slowly downward (3:2) ; a cardium (fossil shell) (1:8);
and the complaint was recorded: "other visual images interfering"
(9:7. 8).
Reagent p was the same "sensitive" as Reagent <?, but he worked
under slightly diflFerent conditions. His earlier set of 100 experiments
followed accurately the procedure observed by the normal reagents,
even to the recording of the introspections. In this set he hoped to be
able to profit by experience from experiment to experiment by checking
judgment with card immediately after the judgment and his introspec-
tion on it were written. This change of procedure was not tried in any
other series, for the reason that the mental attitude of the reagent would
certainly pass through changes as fortune was seen to fluctuate. The
wealth of imagery, and the introspective powers, of this reagent, made it
seem likely that, in case thought-transference occasionally occurs, he
would be able to identify its subjective attributes and thus revise the
scale of evaluation for certainty. Even if he should fail to increase R
cases to a large number, he might, at least, heap them up on his certain
* From Table XLI, set of 100, p. 89, supra.
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140 THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE
judgments and thus wrest proof from an apparently chance series.
Consequently, after the recording of judgment and introspection in each
experiment, the experimenter announced the name of the card drawn and
whether it had been a "Card Imaged" or a "Card Not Imaged" experi-
ment. The experimenter was a post-graduate student of Philosophy
and Mathematics, had been successful in parlor willing-games, both as
guide and subject, and was judged capable of great concentration of
mind. He was also a close friend of the reagent's, had acted as experi-
menter with the same reagent in the preceding set, and helped to work
out the detail of procedure of this set, hoping to make it a crucial test.
It was agreed that the reagent should choose such times for the experi-
ments as he deemed most favorable. One minute was allowed for the
interval of impression, which made the work arduous for both experi-
menter and reagent. The experiments ran from February 12 to May 9,
1914, and were performed on eleven separate days; the number of ex-
periments performed on the consecutive days of experiment being 3, 7,
6, 7, 6, 8, 12, 6, 10, 19, 14.
The knowledge of wrong cases established an expectancy for con-
tinued wrong cases, and, as a whole, the grades fell lower than they
were in the preceding set, although there were not so many pure guesses :
A B C D PG
Number o i 7 52 40
If we inspect the eight higher grades we find them divided evenly
between the "Card Not Imaged" and the "Card Imaged" experiments,
and below the probable number in R cases, only one color and one num-
ber being right; no suit right. There were no complete hits in the
whole set.
The introspective material contributed was copious and excellent;
samples follow:
Auditory Impressions:
Words heard soundlessly; as though spoken by another, but not heard.
No kinaesthetic imagery of the vocal organs. Heard but once (color only
right). (1:3).
Heard my own voice; slight impulse to form words with tongue (a
miss). (4:10).
Visual Impressions:
Unusually persistent; some confusion as to number; at one time two
hearts being uncertainly visible, one above the other (a complete miss). (1:4).
Number symbols mostly ; 3, then 4, then 6, then 3 persisting. Uncertain
as to suit (color right). (1:6).
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GUESSING OF PLAYING-CARDS 141
Confused number of symbols, hard to decide which; first, a red spot,
then a diamond, then **V" unmistakable, but fading to dull spot from which,
next, radiated four lines as to comers of card; decided, therefore, on 5
(wrong). (2:1).
No sense of color; form of diamond; figure 3 later (right for suit).
(2:4).
(Geometric figure, a hexagon, more distinct, lines in exceedingly dark
red, almost black; heart inscribed, very faint, in black outline; heart not as
persistent as outline; points in black (suit right). (3:7).
A heart, red, no number, fading quickly, then a more persistent geomet-
rical outline, diamond-shaped, red (pale) lines in black (color wrong). (4:9).
6; then a heart, point up, quite strong (both wrong). (7:4).
Five geometric figures in succession, evolution of a spade (wrong).
(10:4).
A heart broken in two pieces; (judged 2 of hearts, wrong). (10:10).
Kinaesthetic Impressions:
Unmistakably kinaesthetic— therefore astonishing (a miss). (2.5).
Impulse to say "four"; four what? "Why, x, of course!" Hunch said
hearts (a miss). (9:7).
"Hunches":
Hunch said 7 (wrong). (6:4).
Hunch said Qubs; clubs became visible (wrong). (7 '-2).
Hunch said Ace of Qubs (wrong). (8:9).
"Impression" :
Words distinctly formed mentally, as though spoken; not actually audi-
tory; no decided kinaesthetic impulse; heard inside as though I spoke them
(number right). il\l^.
Automatic Writing:
Tracing of part of outline, unmistakably spades (right). (10:2).
There was other imagery, as with the professional psychics, which
did not relate to the particular experiment :
Extraneous Visual Impressions:
Words written on a black-board: %lue," "paste," "book," "Bess"— quite
disconnected. (1:10).
Two hands, two wrists, small, woman's; but strong, tearing a deck of
cards into small bits, very vigorously, and throwing them away. (4:7)«
Bunch of unrelated geometric and astrological symbols. (5:10).
"Ru— dolph; Rudolfo; Rou— en; cy." (7:8).
Two button-hooks trying to hook into each other; also, on black-board,
"Hogs." (10:3).
Three silver comets. (10:6).
"J 19" on green maple leaf. (10:7).
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142 THOUGHT-TKANSFERENCE
Procedure "with knowledge" induced early in the set an inhibition
of imagery : "Find I must vigorously guard against visualizing the first
vagrant suggestion; and I find this decidedly inhibitive." (1:9). The
interval of the experiment had been "Imageless, strikingly so! (Un-
usual in my experience!)."
The experience of the experiments justifies our reg^ular method.
The reagent cannot avoid vexation upon learning of misses.
The results of this set make it pretty clear that in spite of the best
that two most favorably attuned and experienced persons in psychic
matters could do toward perfecting the conditions for eliciting the pro-
cesses of thought-transference or of clairvoyance (both of which had
been several times most signally experienced by the reagent), the statis-
tical results are obstinately negative, and the successful demonstration
of the objective existence of either or both of these super-normal capaci-
ties is likely to involve subtle difficulties.
Conclusion.
The statistical analysis of the results of 1000 experiments with
psychics reveals no advantage for the psychics over normal reagents as
claimants for the capacities of telepathy or clairvoyance.'" Although
some of the deviations, either because of their consistency '^* or because
of their size,"® seem at first glance to warrant further experiments in
search for some cause beyond chance, they are matched by chance devia-
tions, and they fall considerably below the limit of chance deviation.
The inner experience of awareness of the card (whether telepathic
or clairvoyant need not now be distinguished) frequently occurred in our
'^^This conclusion is, so far, in agreement with the admittedly incomplete
experiments with Mrs. Piper, conducted by Professor James, who has recorded:
"No sign of thought-transference — as tested by card and diagram guessing — ^has
been found in her [Mrs. Piper], either in the hypnotic [not trance] condition just
described, or immediately after it; although her 'control' in the medium-trance
has said that he would bring it about. So far as tried (only twice), no right
guessing of cards in the mediimi-trance. No clear signs of thought-transference,
as tested by the naming of cards, during the waking state." (^Proceedings S. P. R.,
1889-90, 6:654.) Ill England, Phinuit, Mrs. Piper's control, was given a brief series
of tests in telling how many fingers were being held up by a person in the same
room, but concealed behind a screen. There were nine successes (in the first
guesses) out of 29 experiments. Professor and Mrs. Sidgwick observed that "his
success, however, was not very startling, though probably beyond what chance
would produce." (Ibid., p. 616).
*i» Cf., pp. 127 and 130, supra.
"OC^, p. 133, supra.
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GUESSING OF PLAYING-CABDS 143
experiments, and for some of the mediums it often consisted of "mes-
sages" or "impressions" from their customary "spirit controls." There
seems to be no essential difference between the psychics and the normal
reagents in the elements or forms of experience which contribute cer-
tainty to the judgment, — ^the apparent independence of the impression
from the mind's voluntary activity being the best mark of a "certain"
judgment. With the psychic, however, freer rein is g^ven these sensory
and motor automatisms; impressions come with greater facility and in
greater variety, more prone to transcend the requirements of the experi-
ment. Yet the inner experience of super-normal perception is no more
closely correlated either with any single element imder control in the
conduct of the experiment or with R cases. When the "impressions"
fell into professional form, they were no more reliable than when they
pertained to the cards: e. g., there was no financial interest related to
the course to be continued next year, nor could a dark man have been
jealous of it; the mysterious Ferguson with the pretty hands has not
been identified. The experimenter did not enjoy familiar association
with a steamer-rug at any time during the following August or since,
nor did he board a steamer upon a mission to the land of Homer or of
the Pharaohs.*** Is the same authority equally reliable in her assertion
that telepathy between people, between spirits and people, and between
spirits is a fact? The telegram on its way to the experimenter, bearing
sad news of an aged lady, very sick, "belonging to" him, graciously
refrained from materializing; the names of his relatives in spirit land
who were attracted to the laboratory— each and all failed to touch any
chord of memory.*** The absence of a missing page from a book still
remains imdiscovercd and the three persons involved in either the mis-
demeanor or the experimenter's suspicion have been neither apprehended
nor identified.****
Without wishing to minimize the value of further experimentation
with psychics in the "normal" state (for an accumulation of more data
is desirable both for testing for super-normal perception and for psycho-
logical study of the psychic's mental processes) the writer is inclined to
regard trance phenomena or hypnotic phenomena brought into relation
to this investigation as the next logical step.
«*i Cf., supra, pp. 132 f.
2*tcf„supra,p. 135.
"«• Cf., supra, p. 136.
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144 THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE
III. "THE FEELING OF BEING STARED AT."
"The Feeling of Being Stared At" implies a telepathic process — a
becoming aware in a super-normal way of a specific volmitary action of
another person — and the results of its investigation may properly be in-
cluded in Part I.
The belief in this phenomenon is probably an old one ; and that it is
shared by modem university students who come from all over this coun-
try, and from other countries as well, will presently be shown. Professor
Simon Newcomb, the first president of the old American Society for
Psychical Research, has said,'*' in an article which sums up his experi-
ence of fifty years in relation to psychical research, that from childhood
be believed in telepathy through emotion, and in the power of causing any
one sitting at a distance in front of one to turn and look around.
So far as the writer knows, no systematic experimentation has been
undertaken, in psychical research, with a view of testing either "The
Feeling of Being Stared At" or the power to cause a person to turn and
look around. A few cases of the power to impress a percipient with
one's personal presence, by willing it, however, have been recorded.***
The investigation recorded below was made for the purpose of test-
ing the "feeling," and utilizing at the same time whatever "willing-
power" the experimenter (agent) could exercise.
The Prevalence of Belief among University Students.
For five years the students in two of the larger classes in psychology
(Mental Hygiene and General Psychology) have handed in replies to a
Questionnaire in which the first and seventh questions were :
/. Do you ever feel that you are being stared at, with the conviction that
your feeling can be relied upon?
/. Have you found that you could cause a person sitting in front of you in an
audience to turn around, by "willing" it?
««» Newcomb: Modem occultism. Nineteenth Century and After, January
1909, 65 : 127.
««* Cf,, Journal 5. P. /?., 1887-88, 3 : 307-3 ; 1889-90, 4 : 323-6.
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THE FEELING OF BEING STARED AT
145
The following table gives the results : the class, the year of the class,
the number of men and women respectively who handed in replies, and
the per cent of them who answered both questions respectively in the af-
firmative.
TABLE LIV.
Per Cent of Affirmative Replies to Questionnaire Questions / and 7.
Mental Hygiene.
^
Year
igia-ia
1913-14
1914-15
1915-16
1916-17
Sex
Men
Women
Men
Women
Men
Women
Men
Women
Men
Women
No.
51
44
65
55
6a
62
87
44
27
23
% "Yes"
I 7
86 55
86 88
Totals Men 292
Women 228
Men and Women 520
80
96
69
89
n
89
78
87
90
83
68
85
53
82
56
59
44
57
58
17
66
Grand Totals
Men
Women
Men and Women
General Psychotogy.
No.
% "Yes"
/
7
68
60
44
78
74
40
61
77
80
91
50
80
86
40
49
48
26
33
108
71
65
80
57
66
122
55
83
89
62
82
445
321
766
68
71
50
62
55
717
72
53
549
84
68
1286
77
59
As a whole, 77% of 1286 young men and women, who have come
from all comers of the earth and who were following subjects in all de-
partments in the University, affirmed that they have experienced "The
Feeling of Being Stared At" and that they regarded the feeling as more
or less reliable. Many of these students related instances of proof, such
as catching the starer, or hearing his performance conmiented upon by
friends ; and from the beginning of the questionnaire investigation some
of the adherents to the belief, usually strong partisans of the hypothesis
of "Mental Telepathy," expressed their willingness to put the matter to
the test.***
**• The belief in this super-normal capacity was fomid by Professor Titchcner
to be common among his junior students in Psychology at Cornell some years ago,
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146 THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE
I. THE REAGENT REQUIRED TO JUDGE "YES" OR "NO."
During the year 1912-13, 1000 experiments **• were performed by an
aggregate of 10 reagents, each of whom made 100 judgments.
The reagents, consisting of one man and nine women, were selected,
from the Class in General Psychology, on accotmt of their faith in the
belief. The five students who acted as experimenters for Sets VI-X
were chosen from the same class because of their afiirmative replies to
both questions / and 7 in the Questionnaire. (The writer acted as ex-
perimenter in Sets /-F.)
During the critical interval the reagent sat in a writing-leaf chair
with her eyes closed and shaded with her right hand, her elbow resting
on the leaf of the chair. After the interval she gave a judgment "yes"
or "no" according to her belief as to whether she had been stared at;
recorded introspections indicating whether the state of her mind was
favorable, and describing the content of consciousness upon which she
based her judgment; and recorded a grade of certainty for her judg-
ment.
The experimenter sat behind her, manipulated a dice-box by which
he governed the nature of the experiment, tapped once with his pencil to
signal the beginning of the critical interval, stared hard at the back of
the reagent's head, neck, and shoulders if an odd number had been cast
by the die, or closed his eyes and mused upon a favorite landscape if an
and he reported in Science (1898, 8:8p5-7) that experiments in the laboratory
proved the belief to be groundless.
Belief in the efficacy of "staring^ has been remarked by others; e, g., Hiram
M. Stanley sajrs, "Some say that they are able to make one sitting in front turn the
head ... by a steady fixed gaze," and he quoted from p. 198 of Mr. Bell's
'Tangweera": "'Presently I felt as if someone was looking at me, and, raising
my head, saw a large puma standing ten yards off.' " He regarded the belief as a
manifest absurdity, but, considering that investigation has a practical value in ex-
ploding a common error, he put it to the test by a different method from that
described in these pages: "I asked a young man who is very confident of his
powers, to stand, unknown to reagent A, behind a book-case, and look through a
carefully concealed peep-hole. I gave him the best opportunity, placing A about
four feet from the hole and directly facing him, and I engaged A in mechanical
writing. To the young man's confessed disgust and irritation he was unable to
disturb A, My few experiments were negative in results." (Power of the eye.
Science, 1900, 12:73).
*<* A brief report of these experiments was published in the American Journal
of Psychology, 1913, 24:570-5.
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THE FEELING OF BEING STARED AT
147
even number had been cast, tapped twice to signal the close of the critical
interval, and recorded in a ruled form the die number and the reagent's^
judgment. The staring was concentrated and was accompanied by a set
of "will" that the reagent should "feel" it. The critical interval was 20*
seconds for the first five sets, and 15 seconds for the remaining sets.*
Experiments at the beginning of the sets usually occupied about ten
minutes each, but after the procedure became familiar and a critical atti--'
tude was assured they succeeded each other at a higher rate, never faster
than one a minute. From three to four days, a week apart, were usually
required to complete a set.
Results.**^
The following table g^ves the results for both groups of reagents: .'
TABLE LV.
Total and Right Cases in Staring Experiments.
Not Staring Staring
Reagent Total Right
/ SI 28
^^. 45 25
/// 62 23
^y 53 24
y 51 a8
Avg.
VI
VII
VIII
IX
X
Avg 51.2 23.4
Grand Avg. . . . 518 24.5
Total
49
55
38
47
49
48.8
48.2
Right
22
26
20
25
27
27.4
25.7
Total
Right
50
SI
43
49
55
524
25.6
47.6
24.0
49.6
45
23
55
33
56
56
21
44
23
44
48
25
52
26
51
55
26
45
24
50
52
22
48
31
53
5a8
50.2
Of the 1000 guesses, 50.2% were right, (PE., 1.78: MV., 3.10);
47-3% oi the guesses when the experimenter was "Not Staring," and
53.3% of the guesses when he was "Staring," were right. The die-spots
came even 51.8% of the 1000 throws, conditioning this per cent of
"blank" or "control" experiments.
**^This discussion of our results is quoted with but slight revision from the
report in the American Journal of Psychology (loc. cit).
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148 THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE
Since six of the reagents guessed "yes" in excess of "no" (///, i8
times; IV, 8: VI, lo; VII, i6; IX, 6; and X, 22), while but three
guessed "no" in excess of "yes" (/, 10; //, 8; VIII, 2), resulting in a
general average of 6 "yes" guesses per 100 in excess of the "no" guesses,
die excess of 53.3% Right guesses "when the experimenter stared" over
*te 47.3% of Right guesses "when the experimenter did not stare," is
without significance ; if half of the excess of "yes" guesses is deducted
from the "Staring" experiments, the 53.3% is reduced to 50.2%. The
total Right guesses for each reagent is the significant figure. The limits
are 43-56 and deviate from probability about equally ; this size of devia-
tion could be expected by chance 322 times in 1000.
Considering that theoretical probability is 50% ; that our result of
50.2% falls between it and the experimental probability foimd by Quet-
elet "• in 5460 drawings from equal numbers of white and black balls
(white balls 50.48%) ; and that an experimental series of our own (fre-
quency of odd numbers on the dice) for the same number of experiments
gives 51.8%; we may conclude that no cause besides chance has been
found working toward Right cases.
There are other ways in which the results may be distributed to show
that there is no conspicuous "bunching^' of Right cases in any of the
rubrics, and that therefore the consistency of mutual support adds to the
certainty that there has been no influence beyond chance operative toward
Right guesses.
In some of the experiments, the distance between the experimenter
and reagent was varied for the purpose of finding the influence of dis-
tance upon any factor above chance that might be found to be working
for Right guesses. The following table gives the gross averages and the
per cents of Right guesses for the various distances in meters.
TABLE LVI.
First Group.
Distance in meters 12 $4.6
Number of Guesses 80 140 80 60
Per Cent Right 46.3 49^ 55 45
Second Group.
Distance in meters 2 4
Number of Guesses 160 100
Per Cent Right 45 53
2*8 Quetelet : Lettres sur la Th^rie des Probability, p. 57.
6
10
50
80
54
51.3
6
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THE PEELING OF BEING STARED AT 149
But, as Venn says,*^ anything may happen in a chance series, and it
may be charged that all the guesses given with a low degree of certainty
(a feeling that the guess stands a small chance of being right), by a
freak of chance, may have run greatly under the probability-figure for
Right guesses, and may thus have cotmteracted in our final per cent for
each reagent the influence of a force working for Right guesses to be
fotmd in those guesses given with a stronger feeling of certainty.
A tabulation of Right guesses tmder their correlated g^ade of cer-
tainty (recorded in the introspections), however, shows no significant
advantage on the part of any reagent for his more certain over his less
certain guesses. The following table shows a total of such values from
reagents whose grading was definite.
TABLE LVII.
Guesses Given with Varying Grades of Certainty.
"Pure
Grades A B C D Guess" Total
Number of Guesses 15 332 264 61 36 708
Right ID 166 139 33 23 360
Per Cent Right 67 50 48.8 54 ^i 50.8
It seems pretty clear that, if there is a capacity to be aware of being
stared at, it is not, as Richet thought of telepathic phenomena, shared to
a slight extent by normal persons, but must be confined, as James sus-
pected,**® to subjects whose sensibilities have been augmented beyond a
"critical point" through hypnosis or other abnormal conditions.
229 "There can be no doubt that, however unlikely an event may be, if ... we
keep on trying long enough, we shall meet with such an event at last. If we toss
up a pair of dice a few times we shall get doublets ; if we try longer with three we
shall get triplets, and so on. However unusual the event may be, even were it
sixes a thousand times running, it will come some time or other if we have only
patience and vitality enough. Now, apply this result to the letters of the alphabet.
Suppose that one letter at a time is drawn from a bag which contains them all, and
is then replaced. If the letters were written down one after another as they oc-
curred, it would commonly be expected that they would be found to make mere
nonsense, and would never arrange themselves into the words of any language
known to men. No more they would in general, but it is a commonly accepted
result of the theory, and one which we may assume the reader to be ready to
admit without further discussion, that, if the process were continued long enough,
words making sense would appear; nay more, that any book we choose to men-
tion,— Milton's 'Paradise Lost* or the plays of Shakespeare, for example, — ^would be
produced in this way at last." — ^Venn: The Logic of Chance, 3d ed., London;
Macmillan, 1888, pp. 352-3.
*»o Proceedings S. P. R,, 1896-7, 12 : 4 ; also cf., footnote 196, on page 124, supra.
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150 THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE
Our reagents who had more or less confidence in their ability did
not under the favoring conditions of pur experimentation prove their
power. Their belief must be largely based upon those subjective factors
which enabled them to deliver some guesses with a strong feeling of cer-
tainty, and partly perhaps upon undue consideration of cases in which
they have "verified" their feeling by catching the starer.
Qualitative Results.
Introspections show in what manner guesses are determined, and
reveal the factors of experience that contribute to the guesses a feeling
of varying grades of certainty that the guess is right.
Certainty is contributed to the guess by ( i ) some attribute or con-
tent of the imagery, (2) kinaesthetic sensations or images, or (3) infer-
ences from sound sensations resulting from the experimenter's manipula-
tion of apparatus, etc., or from other subjective processes.
( j) When the content of visual imagery involved the attitude of the
experimenter, it determined the guess according to whether the experi-
menter was looking straight ahead or looking away. When this imagery
was vivid, or if it appeared with facility (liveliness) and at the beginning
of the period, or was persistent or recurrent, the guess was given with a
feeling of greater certainty. (Reagent / said, "When the direction of the
look is seen from the face only, I give the guess Grade C; if from the
eyes. Grade B or A.'*)
The visual imagery may be weak, and when it appears at all be
accepted as a sign of being stared at. For Reagent // visual imagery of
the experimenter or of a school-room, in which she first experienced
vividly the feeling of being stared at, yielded a "yes" guess.
Sometimes the content of the visual imagery was probably suggested
by auditory impressions of the experimenter's movements when the latter
were not pronounced enough to be singled out for "inferences" as treated
in Section (j).
Those who depended largely upon visual imagery were Reagents /,
IV, V, VIII, IX, and X.
(2) Some reagents were much occupied with kinaesthetic impres-
sions during the interval. Thus for reagents ///, VII, and VIII, the
most characteristic cue for a highly graded guess was an almost irresist-
ible impulse to turn around, or a tension of muscles in the neck and
shoulders ; for X it was a kinaesthetic (partly thermal) sensation in the
right temple ; sometimes the kinaesthetic impressions were not localized.
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THE FEELING OF BEING STARED AT 151
but were indicated by "a feeling of restlessness"; Reagent VIII also
speaks of a "feeling of discomfort" with a "desire to turn."
The imagery of Reagent V involved a visual or at least a spatial ele-
ment consisting of an imaged straight line, or beam, from the experi-
menter's eyes to the back of her head; and a marked Idnaesthetic im-
pression, leading to "yes" guesses given with a high degree of certainty,
was tension of the eye-muscles toward this line. "Attention and eyes
drawn toward line," was a frequent introspection for guesses given
with a higher grade of certainty. She also has clear visual imagery of
the experimenter either accompanying this Idnaesthetic impression, and
including the "line," or of the experimenter's face turned away. The
visual element gave way, in the course of her experimentation, to the
kinaesthetic, as a guide to the more certain guesses. Reagent VII also
mentions this "line" in her visual imagery of the experimenter, and
speaks of a "feeling of connection."
The kinaesthetic impressions involving restlessness, desire to turn,
strain in the neck-muscles and in the eyes, were shared by other re-
agents who had other modes of imagery from which they made their
guesses ; as V, VIII, IX,
More subtle kinaesthetic imagery was sometimes evidently of in-
fluence in determining the guess. Reagent IX "felt like answering a
call [of her name] ;" and VIII recorded a "feeling of being alone,"
which was a positive determinant for a "no" guess; and of a "feeling
of being criticised," or a "feeling of nearness to the experimenter," both
of which yielded "yes" guesses.
(j) Inferences were sometimes drawn by the reagent from sounds
of the experimenter's manipulation of apparatus or his conduct of the
experiment. After shaking the dice-box, the experimenter waited until
the second-hand was coincident with a five-second dial-mark before he
tapped. Reagent / noticed variability in the length of this interval, and
inferred that longer intervals were caused by preparing "to stare" ; and
he confidently gave for these cases "yes" guesses ; he sought for a basis
for inference when at a point in his series impressions failed to come
during the interval. Other reagents noted in the pre-period a sound of
movement from the rustling of clothing, and inferred that the head was
being raised "to stare"; when such impressions came within the inter-
val, the reagent inferred that the experimenter was not looking. Re-
agent VIII "knew from her movements" the experimenter was not star-
ing, and also inferred that "harder taps" were signals for a "yes" guess.
Even when such impressions are not used in "inferences" they may
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I
152 THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE
conceivably influence the guessing by being taken advantage of subcon-
sciously. It is impossible for the experimenter to maintain perfect uni-
formity in his conduct of the experiment, which involves, among other
things, length of the various intervak, breathing, manipulation of the
dice-box, intensity and accent in tapping, slight bodily movements, etc.
Great effort was made, however, to maintain uniformity, and this may in
part account for the lack of an excess of R judgments.
Inferences may also be based upon hypotheses, and depend in their
outcome upon subjective conditions; e, g., Reagent VII inferred from
internal distraction that the experimenter was not staring, or the dis-
traction would have been overcome; and entire absence of impression
was inferred to indicate that none was sought to be made.
Other tendencies were also noted: "What did I answer last" in-
fluenced Reagent //, who was obviously endeavoring to keep positive
and negative guesses about equally frequent. She also occasionally
made up her mind, Marbe- fashion,*** to say "yes" next time; but since
the series was not voluntarily made by the experimenter, coincidence
due to like tendencies of the two minds was excluded. And when she
was "tired and bored" she wanted to say "no," as a general protest to
further experimentation.
Conclusion.
Our conclusion, with respect to normal reagents, is ( i ) that the be-
lief in "the feeling of being stared at" is quite common (shared by
three- fourths of the university students) ; (2) that experiment shows
it to be groundless; (3) that there is an explanation supplementary to
that mentioned by Titchener"' (nervousness, attracting attention, turn-
ing, catching the gazer) for the existence of the belief, lying chiefly in
attributing an objective validity to commonly experienced subjective
impressions in the form of imagery, sensations, and impulses. This is a
tendency which, under favorable conditions, works itself out in Hallu-
cinations and Motor Automatisms, and it seems to be a common trait
in normal adults.
**^Cf., K. Marbe: Ueber das Gedankenlesen und die Gleichformigkeit des
psychischen Geschehens. Zeitschr. /. Psychol., 1910, 56:241-263.
«" Op. cit
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THE FEELING OF BEING STARED AT 153
II. REAGENT REQUESTED TO RECORD HIS EXPERIENCE.
In spite of the fact that "The Feeling of Being Stared At" was' ex-
perienced in the preceding series of experiments and that the feeling did
not correlate with the staring, the results did not seem conclusive to
some of the reagents who felt confident that they had proved their faith.
The chief criticism ran somewhat as follows: "Your conditions in the
laboratory are not identical with those in nature: specifically, the 'feel-
ing* is normally experienced by an individual in an audience, or in the
woods, and at a time when his mind is pleasantly passing from one thing
to another until it is suddenly seized by the feeling. That is essentially
different from being confronted with the question as to whether you are
being stared at. Under the latter condition the reagent becomes self-
conscious, suggestible, 'introspective,' and her experience must be ab-
normal and unreliable. Let her be stared at without her knowing it,
and you'll find her 'feeling' reliable."
To meet this criticism a second series of looo experiments was per-
formed, during the year 1913-14, under conditions more similar to na-
ture, and, as is usual in compromising laboratory method with condi-
tions of nature, obtaining results less amenable to statistical treatment.
As before, ten women, who had experienced the feeling, and ex-
pressed some degree of confidence in it, were selected from the class in
General Psychology, to act as reagents ; and ten women, seven of whom
claimed that they had been able to "will" persons sitting in front of
them in an audience to turn around, were selected from the same class,
to act as experimenters.
The reagent was instructed to sit with her back to the experiment-
er (about 2 meters distant), to seek a calm, serene condition of mind
during the interval of experiment, which would be from 15 to 20 sec-
onds long, but yet to be on the alert for any impression which might
seem to want to crowd itself into consciousness. She was not to seek
any particular impression, was not to be searching or inquiring at all,
but was to stand ready to welcome whatever should come. She was to
record, after the interval, in phrases which she could explain later to
the researcher, what ideas or impressions had come into her mind. She
was told that the experimenter would shake a dice-box, record the num-
ber of spots cast, and signal the beginning of the interval of experiment
with one tap of her pencil, and its close with two taps. She did not
know it was to be a "staring" experiment, but was left with the impres-
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154 THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE
sion that its principal aim lay in the completeness and accwacy of her
recorded introspections.
The experimenter was instructed to shake the dice-box in a
thorough manner, to keep the intervals between the parts of the experi-
ments and between the experiments themselves as nearly constant as
.possible, not permitting the interval to run under 15 or over 20 seconds
or the experiments to recur more rapidly than one a minute. She was
to avoid moving the body during the interval of experiment, to stare
hard, during the interval of experiment, at the back of the reagent's
head, neck and shoulders, and assume a determined attitude of will that
the reagent should "feel" the staring, when the die cast odd; but when
it cast even, she was to keep her eyes and mind off the reagent, prefer-
.ably by keeping the eyes closed and the mind upon a favorite picture,
an ocean scene, a landscape, or something quite impersonal, during the
whole interval. She was cautioned to keep her instructions to herself,
owing to the effect upon her own reagent and upon the other reagents
if gossip started. The time was observed from the second hand of a
watch, or stop-watch, but was soon accurately estimated so that the
watch merely acted as a check to the estimating.
Results.
In the ten series of 100 experiments each, the odds occurred 43, 44,
46, 49i 50» 52, 54, 54» 56, and 59 times, aggregating 507 times.
Distraction was noted 71 times, 40 during intervals conditioned by
4 odd die-spots, which left 467 intervals of "staring" while the reagent
considered mental conditions favorable.
Among the 1000 introspections there is not one which suggests that
any of the 10 reagents had "the feeling of being stared at" during any
.of the critical intervals. About 20 out of the 1000 may be regarded as
indicating a reaction upon the conditions set by the experimenter ; such as
(i) Condition of mind good; image of experimenter sitting at table back of
•me; saw her hand holding a dice-box. (i : 55; odd).
(2) Fair; distraction of radiator ; saw experimenter at table; saw stray lock
of her hair. (i:6o; even).
(3) Good; saw two four-spots (of dice). (2:7; even — 2).
(4) Good; saw a long row of dice. (2:90; even).
(5) Not good; wondered what was going on behind me. (3:1; odd).
(6) Good; rather wondered whether experimenter was suggesting any im-
.pression. (8:16; even).
Of the twenty, eight were written upon intervals conditioned by the
odd die-spots.
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THE FEELING OF BEING STARED AT ISS
Why was not "the feeling of being stared at" aroused? In the
former series it occurred but it was not reliable; in this series the re-
agent's mind was relieved from self-consciousness, and the reputed
cause of the "feeling" was introduced during 467 favorable intervals
without result.
The cause of the "feeling," or, at least, the factors of experience
upon which confidence in it rested, were found to be (i) some attribute
or content of the imagery present, (2) Idnaesthetic sensations or images,
or (3) inferences from sensations of sound resulting from the experi-
menter's manipulation of the apparatus, etc.**' And it was concluded
that Jts cause lies "chiefly in attributing an objective validity to com-
monly experienced subjective impressions in the form of imagery,
sensations and impulses."*'^ This tendency seemed a common trait in
normal adults.
An inspection of the introspections reveals the fact that plenty of
subjective impressions, in the form of imagery, sensations, and impulses,
were experienced in this series of experiments, and there is indication
that some of them stand on the threshold of a veridical interpretation : —
might be regarded as* cases of incipient clairvoyant or other "psychic"
capacity :
(i) Poor;*" saw chair empty in next class. (1:9; odd).
(2) Good; saw girl with whom I am going to game; saw her on bleachers,
expression on face, dress she will wear. (1:25; odd).
(3) Good; saw postman coming to door, mother on porch receiving letter.
(1:57; odd).
(4) Good ; seemed to be looking down stairs of this building ; saw color and
texture of stairs. ( i : 64 ; even) .
(5) Good; saw grandmother who is 500 miles away. (1:79; even).
(6) Good; saw neighbor getting off train; she is expected home today.
(1:98; odd).
(7) Good; thought I heard some one saying my name. (2:19; odd).
(8) Good; heard whisper "4'' back of experimenter. (2:1; even — 2).
(9) Fair; "ninety-three." (9:4; even).
(10) Good; thought of the number "three." (10:37; even).
(11) Good; saw hands of library clock ten minutes after four. (5:74; even).
(12) Fair; hand itches; am I going to meet some one? (7:30; odd).
(13) Good; felt as if I wanted to speak. (2:8; even).
(14) Good; impulse to put hand to head. (6:26; even).
(15) Good; felt as if trying to pronounce words. (10:33; even).
»*• Vide, supra, pp. 150 f.
«M Vide, supra, p. 152.
«3S Condition of the mind during the critical interval.
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1 56 THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE
The reason that these impressions, sensations, and impulses do not
have the attribute of objective validity seems to be that the situation
was not recognized by the reagent as one in which veridical impressions
are likely to occur. Let the suggestion be given that impressions re-
ceived during the interval may not be entirely free from the experi-
menter's control, and the attribute of objectivity in varjring degrees of
certainty is conferred upon them, as was the case in the Card-guessing,
and in the first series of Staring experiments.
Supplementary Experiments.
To test this further with Staring experiments, but under conditions
in which the suggestion was not so direct, two more young women, who
r^^rded themselves as being sensitive for staring, were selected from
the class in General Psychology to act as reagents, and their experiment-
ers were similarly chosen for their faith in their power to will persons
to turn around. Each pair performed loo experiments. Procedure was
the same as in the main series, except that the reagent was given the fol-
lowing instructions :
"During the critical interval you are to keep your mind free from external and
internal distraction, open for any impression or suggestion that wants to come into
consciousness ; this may not be entirely free from the experimenter's influence."
Introspections were recorded as before.
In the first supplementary set the die cast odd numbers, condition-
ing staring, fifty times, and there were twenty-six introspections the
content of which referred to the experimenter's influence in "Willing,"
transmitting thought, and "Staring^'; 58% of them occurred in experi-
ments when the experimenter stared, and 42% when the experimenter
did not stare. The following are samples :
2: 10. Felt as if the experimenter's attention was upon me. (s).'**
3:10. I thought the experimenter had some influence on thought; she was
thinking about me. (2).
4:4. Thought the experimenter was looking at a certain spot on my head, low
down; wanted to turn around and see. (3).
6:3. Felt she must be looking at or thinking about me. (6).
7:1. Felt something pulling me her way. (6).
7:5. Wanted to ask her if my hair was all right; felt her looking at it (i).
8:7. She seemed to be looking at me. (4).
This reagent explained that she suspected, from the instructions
given her, that the experimenter would attempt to influence her by
«»« Die-spot
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THE FEELING OF BEING STARED AT 157
thinking or staring when certain die-spots were shown. Early in the
set she noticed that the experimenter's tap signaling the beginning of
the interval varied in strength, and inferred from a sharp tap that the
experimenter would either think about her or stare at her. From this
cue, which did not turn out to be very reliable, her experience during the
interval readily developed.
In the second supplementary set the die came up odd 51 times, and
25 introspections were marked by the reagent as records of experience
probably caused by the experimenter. They were classified into two
groups according to the reference of the content to the experimenter's
thoughts or to her actions ; out of twelve of the former, five, and out of
thirteen of the latter, seven, fell upon experiments when the experiment-
er stared. There were five cases of the feeling of being stared at, four
of them falling on experiments conditioned by odd die-spots. The more
pertinent of the marked introspections follow:
6:4. Experimenter's paper and pencil: her hands. (5).
6:8. Experimenter looking at me. (i).
7:10. Experimenter looking at dice. (4).
8:3. Experimenter looking at me and at paper. (6).
8:8. Experimenter watching me. (i).
9:1. Experimenter looking from me to paper, (i).
9:8. Experimenter looking at watch. (6).
9:9. Experimenter looking at me. (i).
10:5. Die with five spots on top. (6).
10:6. Experimenter looking at my back. (6).
10:8. Experimenter holding pencil, (i).
Hit and miss cases of the feeling of being stared at occur in a va-
riety of impressions, some of which are fair samples of incipient clair-
voyance and compare not unfavorably with those in which "psychics"
place unreserved confidence. For these impressions to be pertinent, only
slight suggestions in word or external condition appear to be necessary.
When the situation, however, is not recognized to be probably a
"staring" one, the reagent, although his mind is free from the self-con-
sciousness undoubtedly induced by the method of the first series and is
in as favorable a state as could be desired for being seized with the feel-
ing of being stared at, has impressions which occasionally approach
"psychical phenomena," but which, as we have seen in the first part of
this series, are devoid of any reference to frequent and competent
staring.
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1 58 THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE
III. MULTIPLE STARERS.
One more criticism seemed to be worthy of test. It was suggested
that the force of a single person's staring might not be sufficient to rise
above the threshold of awareness, under laboratory conditions, and it
may be for this reason that laboratory results do not confirm the belief
which has grown out of general experience.
A series of lOO experiments was consequently carried out during
1913-14 for testing this criticism. Four reagents were chosen in like
manner as before for their special qualifications; Reagents A, B, and
C (women), because of their sensitiveness for staring, and Reagent D
(a man), because of some training in reading slight sensible signals.
Twelve starers were appointed, five women and seven men, some of
whom were somewhat skeptical, but all of whom were willing to do
their best to give the "feeling" hypothesis a fair trial. Only on the last
day, however, when series 8, 9, and 10 were performed, were all of the
starers in their places ; on the first day two men and on the second day
three men were absent. The sittings took place in the large lecture
room (No. 414) from 11 : 15 to i^: 15 on Fridays (Nov. 6, 20, Dec. 4).
The disposition of the reagents and starers is shown below, the distance
between the reagents and the first row of starers being a little over two
meters :
Reagents A B C D
Starers o o o
00000
00 00
The instructions to the reagents A, B, and C were to rest comfort-
ably with eyes closed, during the critical interval, and to keep the mind
in the most favorable condition, according to their judgment, for de-
termining immediately after the interval whether they had been stared
at, for at this time they were to record their judgment in "Yes" or
"No," and were to write the customary introspections descriptive of
their experience. They were informed that the staring would be con-
trolled pari passu by the dice-spots. Reagent D was instructed to keep
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THE FEELING OF BEING STARED AT 159
his eyes closed, during the interval, and to endeavor to judge as best he
might from slight sounds such as are made by the movement of the
body, of the feet, of clothing, or by changes in the breathing, whether
the starers were staring.
The starers were instructed that when an odd number was cast by the
die they were to stare concentratedly at the second person from the left
(Reagent B) ; but when an even number was cast to close their eyes, dur-
ing the critical interval, and image (intensely) a black cat on the lecture
table, facing the left. In either case, diu-ing the interval they were to
assume a strong attitude of will that the second person from the left
should share their mental content. The starer who sat in the middle of
the front row was appointed master of ceremonies. He shook the dice-
box, held up the die so that all starers could see the spots cast, kept the
time, and tapped signals to begin and to close the critical interval, which
was 15 seconds in duration. At the beginning the experiments ran
slowly ; later they recurred at the rate of one a minute.
At the conclusion of the series of experiments the starers were
asked to hand in a written statement describing their experience during
the interval, telling exactly what they did when an odd number was
cast, what they did when an even number was cast, and describing any
deviation during the hour or between days of experiment.
Results.
Of the 100 throws, odds were cast 55 times; hence, in 55 experi-
ments the crowd of starers stared at Reagent B, and in 45 experiments
they closed their eyes and sought to transfer to Reagent B their respec-
tive images of a black cat.
Reagent B, who had been chosen as the most sensitive of the three,
the only reagent who was stared at, recorded "Yes" 34 times; 56%
were right; of the 100 judgments, 49% were right. The probable per
cent is 50.
The multiplication of starers undoubtedly increased the vividness
of the experience, as is shown by the reagent's introspections. Most of
those accompanying her "Yes" judgments are given below in two lists
according to whether the reagent had been stared at :
(i) Reagent Stared at.
1 : 5. Heart beat faster.
7:5. Heart beat faster; expectant feeling.
2:6. Felt warmer.
2:9. Thumping in ears (felt skeptical).
10:9. Felt conscious of my ears.
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160 THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE
1 :8. Felt choked ; tightening of throat
3:7. Queer catching of the breath.
4 : 3. Felt throbbing at back of neck ; mind a blank.
3:4. Kinaesthetic sensations in shoulders.
4:8. Kinaesthetic sensations in shoulder.
5:9. Kinaesthetic sensations in ztfns and hands.
4:4. Hard to describe my feelings: just felt I was being stared at
8:7, Felt "conscious."
8:2, Expectation and feeling of realization.
8 : 5. Felt several pairs of eyes on back of my head.
9:3. Felt eyes on the back of my head.
9 : 10. Conscious of presence of those behind me.
1:4. No definite feeling except "consciousness."
(2) Reagent Not Stared At.
1 : 10. Kinaesthetic sensations at back of neck and in cheeks.
2 : 10. Muscular movements in back.
2:1. Tightening of muscles inside ; faster heart beat
1 :3. Felt like more blood rushed to my head.
2:3. Breathing hard; expectant feeling.
7 : 6. Breathless for a moment, reeling.
2 : 5. Queer feeling at pit of stomach.
6 : 4. Felt twitching of ears.
10 : 10. Felt conscious of my ears.
10:4. Kinaesthetic sensations in my right shoulder.
3:1. Indescribable feeling of self -consciousness.
5 : 5. Felt like I was being looked at ; ears got hot.
10:6. Thought I felt their eyes; wasn't sure^
3:6. Mind concentrated on self.
An examination of these lists reveals (a) the sensitiveness of the
reagent, some of her experiences being almost painful and some of them
quite embarrassing; (b) the elements of her experience upon which the
affirmative judgment is grounded; and (c) the occurrence of these ele-
ments impartially in both lists. Although the first list seems somewhat
more satisfactory, the introspections being greater in number and some
of them more positive in statement, the difference would hardly be sat-
isfactory to any believer in the theory for use in supporting his belief.
The results of Reagents A and C fall in the same class, since neither
of these reagents was stared at.
Reagent A judged "Yes" 14 times. Some of the introspections ac-
companying her affirmative judgments indicate the elements of experi-
ence responsible for them :
1:4. Strong feeling in center of back; tendency to turn around, (i).
1 : 7. I felt a tendency to turn to my right like some one over my right
shoulder was thinking of us. (5).
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THE FEELING OF BEING STARED AT 161
2:1. Felt cold— shivered. (2).
3:3. Strong idea that it was cold. (i).
4:4. Felt impression in middle of back. (i).
4:7. Wondered if Reagent B was feeling what I was; could not tell whether
I felt her being stared at. (4).
5:2. Thought how peculiar and foolish experiments were and wondered how
they did any good; and yet felt I was being stared at (6).
5:6. Felt as if the starers were staring at me; and the other reagents not
entering (not being stared at). (5).
5:8. Rather strange feeling — ^very centered. (6).
6:8. Felt leader's eyes upon me. (i).
8:4. Felt people staring at my head, and also at Reagent B, (4).
The effect of the suggestion furnished by the setting of the experi-
ment is also shown by several cases in which the experience was on the
point of developing and again in which it had been begun but did not
mature into affirmative judgments:
6:7. Thought it was about time, but felt nothing. (6).
7:4. About time, came over me, for some one to stare at me; no feeling,
however. (6). •
3:4. At first, no thoughts; later, thought of starers, but effect was gone. (3).
6:2. Felt a wave of something, like some one thought about staring but did
not. (2).
Reagent C made i6 "Yes" judgments. Her introspections accom-
panying the latter indicate the positiveness of her experience :
1 :3. Felt as though some one were staring at back of head. (4).
1:5. Felt self-conscious; had desire to laugh. (3).
1 :9. Had a feeling of being stared at, and a sort of visual image of starer
(eyes, etc.). (4).
2:6. Had a sort of dull feeling in head as though headache was coming
on. (3).
3:1. Felt that they kept on staring after two taps. (2).
3:9. Felt I was being stared at in back of head. (i).
4 : 6. Felt as though starers on right side did most of the work. (2) .
4:10. Felt great desire to turn around and look at [the person] who was
staring at me. (5).
5 : 8. Quite sure ; felt however as though they were not staring with all their
might. (6).
5:9. Felt some one staring. (3).
7:7. Felt as though some one were staring at my back. (3).
8:1. Felt distinctly that I was being stared at. (6).
9:4. Felt that starer on left side was "doing the work." (5).
9:6. Had distinct idea of being stared at. (6).
10:2. Felt that I was being stared at. (4).
10:10. Felt this time that I was being stared at. (6).
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162 THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE
Other introspections, accompanying "No" judgments, indicate in-
cipient stages of the feeling of being stared at:
2:10. Was not quite sure; hesitated about saying "no." (2).
4:2. Slight doubt as to "No." (6).
4:7. Slight doubt as to "No." (4).
6:3, Was not positive enough to say "Yes." (6).
9:1. Was not quite sure about saying "No." (2).
The fruitfulness of the experimental situation for suggestion may
be seen in still other introspections written by reagents A, B, and C;
first, regarding others being stared at ; then a few miscellaneous cases :
Reagent B.
4: 1. Felt as if they were staring at Reagent C at my right. (5).
5:8. Felt Reagent A was being stared at. (6).
7:2. No sensations: felt others were being stared at. (5).
9:8. Felt as though my neighbors were being stared at. (2).
Reagent A.
10 : 10. Felt that the starers missed me and were staring at the chair next to
me, not the person (Reagent B). (6).
Reagent C.
2:3. Felt "No, they are staring at some one else." (4).
4:5. Felt as though reagents on my left were being stared at (Reagents A
and B), (4).
7:3. Felt as though some one was staring, but not at me. (i).
9:7. Felt that other reagents were being stared at. (3).
Miscellaneous Cases.
C 3:7. Found myself saying inwardly "Is some one staring at me?" (i).
C. 6:7. Found myself acting as though I were starer, saying "I am looking
at you"; peculiar condition. (6).
C 6:8. Still wondering about preceding experiment (i).
A. 3:8. Saw "No, no," on my paper, (i).
The statistical and administrative phases of the experimentation
were not without suggestive power :
B, 7:10. Speculated on how many times I've been wrong.
B. 9:6. Speculated on outcome of this experimentation.
B. 10 : 10. Anxious to know outcome of experimentation.
A. 4:5. Wondered how they marked the person to be stared at.
Occasionally, as in the card-guessing, the impressions, although
vivid and definite, had no bearing upon the matter in hand ; as,
A. 7:7, Braced my mind to think on nothing, but suddenly a visual image
of a street in Palo Alto and the Episcopal church came before my eyes.
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THE PEELING OF BEING STAKED AT 163
The chief contribution of the introspections of this series, however,
lies in their illustration of the fact that if the situation is recognised by
the reagent as probably a staring situation, "the feeling of being stared
af is quite likely to be evoked in grades of definiteness from doubtful
certainty to painful and embarrassing certainty; and that the reagents
incentives for conferring the objective attribute upon his inner experi-
ence are derived from his acceptance of the suggestions of the situation,
and not from the objective fact which hif experience seems to him to
definitely and truly report
If the judgments of Reagents A and C are regarded as referring to
the staring at Reagent B instead of at themselves, Right cases are 45%
and 43% respectively, as against the probability of 50%.
The R cases of Reagent D, whose judgments referred to the fact
of staring only, are 50%. His introspective report is a vindication of
the method of experiment, with reference to the oft-repeated criticism
that slight sounds furnish the sub-conscious cue for the reagent's judg-
ments. The imaging of the black cat on the demonstration table during
the intervals of no staring was designed to assist the starers to keep the
conditions of the regular and the control experiments uniform. Owing
to the number of starers it was feared that such tmconscious indications
might be sufficient through their cumulation to introduce error. Since
Reagent D, who judged "No" when he heard rustling of clothing indica-
tive of movement or shifting of position, feet tapping or striking or
scraping a chair or the floor, chairs moved, paper rattled, or sighing,
and judged "Yes" when there was "no sound," "absolute silence," or
"utter silence," was not able to raise his R judgments above mere chance,
the field would have been clear for identifying a super-sensible cause
in the R cases of the feeling of being stared at, had they not occurred
impartially upon both regular and control experiments, and with the
control reagents as well as with Reagent B.
Another vindication of our methods of experiment in the laboratory,
using as reagents students selected from classes in General Psychology,
should perhaps be pointed out while the conditions of this series of
experiments are fresh in the reader's mind. The fact that none of the
reagents saw a black cat on the demonstration table, indicates that a
group of sixteen students have been sufficiently faithful to their trust
that during the three weeks of experimentation no breath of gossip
reached the ears of the reagents.
Of course, the non-appearance of the black cat also indicates
(i) that a sensitive reagent can spend 45 periods of 15 seconds each in
a state of mind judged by herself as most favorable for receiving a
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164 THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE
feeling of being stared at, and be the unconscious target for shafts of
visual imagery from twelve persons, without being aroused by the cu-
mulated energy of thought-projection; and (2) that two reagents, more
or less sensitive, can be in close proximity to and carelessly exposed 45
times to the same battery of black-cat images without danger of being hit.
Since none of the reagents got a "generic image" **^ of a cat "com-
pounded from the minds" of the twelve starers, no description of it was
available from the introspections, but the reader may be interested to
learn some of the characteristics of the respective cats as imaged in the
different minds. The following four quotations will be sufficient to illus-
trate the diversity in detail :
(i) A huge black cat sitting on the table, looking out of the window.
(2) I always thought of the same black cat in the same attitude. It was
always the bushy-tailed, "stocking ad" cat with said tail elevated at an agle of 40*^.
(3) I closed my eyes and thought of a black cat; it very often looked like
the one in the shoestore back of the postoffice; its eyes would move, though, and
its whole body sway, very often. . . . Sometimes it would be very quiet and
stilt, and pop its eyes right out and stare with a glassy look.
(4) The cat had his back arched ; his eyes were green ; the hair on his neck
stood upright ; he was a fierce cat.
This diversity in detail following general instructions to image a
black cat is not greater here than the writer has fotmd it in a sitting
where several professional 'psychics' saw clairvoyantly an ethereal being
in the room and later independently described the detail of position,
posture, features, raiment, etc.
The reports handed in at the close of the experimentation show that
the starers knew their duty, and that there is every reason to believe
that they acquitted themselves well. Most of them were favorably dis-
posed toward the "feeling" hypothesis; some were agnostic. Sample
quotations follow:
(i) Personally, I have always been somewhat attracted to the idea of Mental
Telepathy. . . . There arc times when one does feel like he is being stared at and
iinds^ it to be true, and there are cases when one is unaccountably depressed or
elated and finds out later that some good news, or the contrary, was on the way,
or that something pleasing or displeasing has happened ; these incidents being such
that he could not possibly have known anjrthing about them. I suppose, of course,
in anything of this kind we always neglect, or at least have a tendency to neglect,
negative instances, and this will account for a good deal of the assurance with
which some people declare their belief in Mental Telepathy. ... It is undoubtedly
true that when you are closely associated with some one who is feeling "out of
sorts," although he carefully conceals the fact, you are affected by his depression.
"'^CA, Jordan: The sympsychograph. Pop, Set. Mo., 1896, 49:597-602.
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THE FEELING OF BEING STARED AT 165
Why is it not possible for stronger feelings of a like nature to be transmitted
greater distances? ... I have always had a certain amount of belief in it
(2) I am not skeptical regarding the experiment.
(3) As for the value of the experiment I do not see but that there should be
some results worthy of note. I do believe in some form of Mental Telepathy.
(4) Although I have never experienced the feeling of being stared at, I think
it is quite possible for one to have that feeling, for many times I have looked up to
find some one staring at me and thought at the time that this caused me to look
up, although the debits feeling was lacking.
(5) Since I have never had a conclusive proof of any positive effect of staring
at another's back, I naturally have not much faith. However, I am hoping to have
this point settled when the results of the effects on the reagents and their attitudes
of mind are known.
(6) I am a skeptic on this subject . . . but this does not mean that I have
certain preconceived ideas which are not possible of eradication. I am open-minded
enough to be willing to consider the possibility of anything. But just one objection
occurs to me in this connection; namely, that if this faculty is at all wide-spread
its evidences should be so manifest as to require no discussion. A professor when
he asks a question thinks of the answer he expects, but the student never flatters
himself that he gets any enlightening suggestions from this method. ... In a
word the facts of everyday life all point away from such a conclusion. The sden-
stared at. . . . I have never been conscious that any one has been staring at me.
tific aspect of the subject I do not pretend to know anything about.
(7) I do not believe that any accurate results [of proof] can be obtained. I
think that it is only a matter of chance in knowing Dudging] whether one is being
How impotent the combined staring, and the combined effort at
projecting the imagery of a black cat, proved to be, and how fortuitous
was the occurrence of the feeling of being stared at, can be more fully
realized, perhaps, by inspecting a few of the experiments in cross-
section; thus getting a record of the synchronous experiences of the
respective reagents under the two general conditions of experimentation :
Reagent B was Staked At.
1-4. A. Strong feeling in center of back; tendency to turn around. — ^Yes."«
B. No definite feeling, except "consciousness." — Yes.
C. Mind in normal condition. — No.
D. Heard nothing at all: silence. — ^Yes.
1:7. A. Felt a tendency to turn to my right, like some one over right shoulder
was thinking of me.^ — ^Yes.
B. No sensations. — No.
C. Required conscious effort not to follow a train of thought — No.
D. Heard no sound or movement. — ^Yes.
**• To interpret the line : The numbers indicate the fourth experiment of the
first series (of ten) ; the letter indicates the reagent ; the judgment following the
record of experience relates to the staring.
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166 THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE
4:1a A, Qosed eyes; tired feeling. — No.
B, No sensations. — No.
C, Felt great desire to turn around and look at [the person] who was staring
at me— Yes.
D, Heard nothing. — ^Yes.
7:3. A, Cold; shivered. — No.
B. No sensations; felt others were being looked at. — No.
C. Normal condition. — No.
D. Silence in the rear of room. — ^Yes.
A Black Cat Was Imaged^ and thb Thought Disicm) Towasd Rsagint B.
1:3. A, Wondered when the tap would come (to close the interval). — Na
B, Felt like more blood rushed to my head. — ^Yes.
C, Felt as though some one were staring at back of head. — ^Yes.
D, Heard a shifting behind me. — No.
2:3. A, Wondered how high the flag-pole was.— No.
B. Breathing hard; expectant feeling.— Yes.
C. Felt "No, they are staring at some one else." — No.
D. Complete silence behind me.— Yes.
2:1a A, Wondered how many experiments. Whether they really were staring,
and I could not recognize it. — No.
B. Muscular movements in back. — ^Yes.
C. Was not quite sure : hesitated about saying "No."— No.
D. Heard nothing. — Yes.
4:7. A, Wondered if Reagent B was feeling what I was. Could not tell whether
I felt her being stared at. —Yes.
B. Thought of all the things I should be doing at home — ^No.
C. Slight doubt as to "No.**— No.
D. Heard no sound behind me.— Yes.
5:8. A, Rather strange feeling; very centered. — ^Yes.
B. Felt Reagent A was being stared at. — No.
C. Quite sure ; felt, however, as though they were not staring with all their
might.— Yes.
D. Heard no sounds. — ^Yes.
6:7. A. Thought it was abouttimci^ but felt nothing. — No.
B. Had auditory image of sounds in Psychol, yesterday. — No.
C Found myself acting as though I were starer, saying, "I am looking at
you"; peculiar condition. — No.
D, Heard a sound of shifting of position. — No.
9:1. A, Wondered how long this series would take. — No.
B. No unusual sensations; thoughts wandered.— No.
C. Was not quite sure about saying "No." — No.
D. Complete silence at rear of room.— Yes.
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THE FEBUNG OP BEING STARED AT 167
Conclusion.
"The Feeling of Being Stared At" is experienced in the laboratory
when the experimental situation is recognized by the reagent as probably
a staring situation. It does not correlate with the external fact of
staring whether the reagent is or is not stared at during the experimen-
tation, or whether the staring is done by one person or by twelve persons.
When the situation is not recognized by the reagent as providing staring,
the feeling does not occur. It seems probable, therefore, that the occur-
rence of the feeling is dependent upon suggestion alone, having no
causal relation to the fact of staring.
Analysis of experience reveals imagery, sensations, and impulses as
the points de repire, if not the essential constitution, of the "feeling,"
although many attempts in the introspections left the "feeling" unan-
alyzable. Certainty often depends upon the vividness of the imagery
and its apparently independent behavior.
In all situations where the reagent seeks to free her mind from all
distraction, external and internal, impressions in great variety insinuate
themselves into consciousness; some of these have no apparent relation
to the business in hand. In this respect normal reagents and sensitive
reagents are similar. While the former, however, confer objectivity
only upon those impressions relevant to the experiment, the latter regard
their irrelevant impressions as veridical either in their literal or in a
symbolic sense. It is true that the psychic is likely to enjoy impressions
in greater profusion ; but this may be owing to her practice as an auto-
matic instrument for the manifestation of what she regards as other
(usually 'spirit') personalities or for the expression of as yet unknown
cosmic forces.
Sensory and motor automatisms, then, from incipient to hallucina-
tory grade, are shared by both normal and sensitive reagents, and con-
stitute the inner experience of "the feeling of being stared at" and of
thought-transference, but, so far as our experiments (which number in
the aggregate 14,500) are qualified to indicate, bear no causal relation
to the external processes or facts to which they refer.
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PART n.
EXPERIMENTS
ON
SUBLIMINAL IMPRESSION
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May there not be around oar normal perception, a
fringe of perceptions, most often unconscious, but all
ready to enter into consciousness, and in iact entering in
in certain exceptional cases or in certain predisposed sub-
jects? If there are perceptions of this kind, it is not
only psychology in the strict meaning of the term that
they concern; they are facts with which "psychical
research** could and should concern itself. — Professor
Henri Bergson, in his Presidential Address, delivered in
Aeolian Hall, London, May 28, 1913, before the Society
for Psychical Research. (Proceedings S. P, R., 27 : 170.)
'The most interesting and illuminating address which
this Society has ever received." — ^Arthur J. Balfour.
(Journal 5*. P. R., 16:86).
170
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PART n.
SUBLIMINAL IMPRESSION.
ORIENTATION.
Apart from decq>tion, collusion/ a disregard for the limits of
chance,' and ''brain-waves/'* the explanation for thought-transference
most frequently brought forward, especially by scientists who have some
acquaintance with psychology, is that of subliminal perception of signs
or signals involuntarily given. It is supposed that the reagent, or per-
cipient, unconsciously receives impressions in the form of signals or
signs offered involuntarily by the experimenter, or agent, or some party
or parties to the experiment who know what the reagent is attempting
to guess, and that these signs or signals may be so slight that an acute
observer would not perceive them and might be willing to affirm their
absence. Thus, in the investigation of the famous ''educated horse,"
Qever Hans, Pfung^t found that this horse, popularly credited with an
education equivalent to that of a seventh- or eighth-grade boy, could
paw the answers to problems in higher mathematics, problems beyond
the range of many American college graduates, provided only his fine
old master von Osten knew the answer and was in his field of vision.^
The pawing stopped at involuntary sig^ls, consisting of slight changes
in posture and expression, so slight that no observers had noticed them
and some are yet skeptical of their existence. And, concerning the re-
^ Tuckett : The Evidence for the Supernatural. London : Paul, 191 1, Appendix
R, pp. 369-399; also Gumey: Proceedings, S.P.R,, 1888-9, 5:269-270; Minot:
North American Review, 1895, 160:222 ff. ; Lehmann: Auberglaube und Zauberei,
2te Aufg., Stutt, 1908, pp. 458-65; and Donkin: Nineteenth Century Maganne,
1882, 12:132.
* Preyer : Die Erklarung des Gedankenlesens. Leipzig, 1886, pp. 49 £F.
^Spectator, January 30, 1869, pp. 136-7; Twain: "Mental telegraphy," Har-
pers Monthly, 1891, 84 : 100 ; Crookes : Part of the Presidential Address delivered
to the British Association at Bristol, Sept., 1898. Proceedings S. P. R., 1898,
14:3-4.
^ Vide, Pfungst : Das Pferd des Herm von Osten. Leipzig, 1907 ; or the
English translation under the title of Qever Hans, which bears a preface by an
American and an introduction by a German, both psychologists of the first rank.
New York: Holt, 191 1.
171
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172 SUBLIMINAL IMPRESSION
markable feats of mind-reading performed by little Beulah Miller of
Rhode Island, Professor Miinsterberg, who conducted a number of ex-
periments with her, says, "I think everything can be explained through
her subconscious noticing of unintended signs. But the signs which she
receives are not noticed by her consciously. She is not aware of them;
they go to her brain or to her subconscious mind and work from there
on her conscious mind. . . . [Her] successes turn into complete failures
as soon as neither the mother nor the sister is present in the room . . .
The good results stop entirely when Beulah is blind- folded." •
If this is a legitimate explanation the psychological laboratory
might be expected to provide methodical proof of the influence of "sub-
liminal impression." Some of the professional literature, indeed, does
supply support to this principle, in statements from psychologists of
high rank, in reports of investigations of which the support is a by-
product, and in a few reports of investigations in which the problem
was directly attacked.
The first good account of this hypothesis with some notice of its
older exponents and its warrant in fact was given by Sir William Ham-
ilton. •
Lipps speaks of unconscious psychical stimuli.^
Carpenter says, "There seems no inherent improbability in the sup-
position that the power of intuitively interpreting the indications invol-
untarily furnished by expression of the countenance, gesture, manner,
etc., so as to divine what is passing in the mind of another person, may
be greatly intensified"* in certain mental conditions or in certain in-
dividuals; and he has given wide currency to Laycock's concept of
"Unconscious Cerebration." •
James R. Angell ^® points out that in perception we are always
aware of the "fringe" or background of consciousness, of sense activi-
ties other than those we speak of as being perceived, and that this
"fringe" constitutes a consciousness of particular things present to the
sense.
Ktilpe ^^ shows that for the adult consciousness a content may be
» Munsterberg : Psychology and Social Sanity. New York : Doubleday, 1914,
pp. 162-4.
•Hamilton: Lectures on Metaphysics. Boston, 1859, pp. 241 ff.
^ Lipps : Grundtatsachen dcs Seelenlebens. Bonn, 1883, S. 125.
•Carpenter: Mesmerism, Spiritualism, &c., 1895, pp. 54-55-
•Carpenter: Quarterly Review, 1871, 131:316 ff-; also Principles of Mental
Physiology. New York, 1886, ch. XIII.
10 Angell: Psychology, New York, 1909, p. 151.
11 Kiilpe : Outlines of Psychology. London, 1901, p. 291.
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ORIENTATION ^ 173
analyzed into "unconscious," yet psychic, components, and that after
analysis the parts can be recognized by introspection. This "uncon-
sciousness" is a characteristic of attention, not of "fusion" as is the case
in hearing a "clang^* of musical sounds.
Jastrow and Nuttall " performed experiments to determine the ex-
istence of a magnetic sense, and found in their first series of 800 experi-
ments that the faintly audible molecular crepitation and click caused by
magnetising and demagnetising the magnet had been unconsciously used
as a basis for forming the judgment by the reagents, whose Right cases
indicated an influence beyond chance.
Stout *• grants a mental process taking place below the threshold of
consciousness and says, "There is no reason why the slight sensory indi-
cations operative in so-called thought-transference should be exclusively
muscular or auditory. And it is quite probable psychologically that sen-
sory indications may operate without being discerned by the person
whom they influence."
Peirce and Jastrow ^* found in experiments on sensible discrimina-
tion that subliminal differences in brightness, although unrecognized,
were clearly effective in determining the judgments.
Donaldson,^" after quoting the immediately preceding research,
says, "Differences too small to be discriminated may still influence our
reactions, and it is thus seen that among effective stimuli there must also
be included those which we do not recognize."
Eckener *• showed that when a minimal sound becomes subjectively
inaudible, the reagent is still in many cases able to tell when the stimu-
lus is interrupted, and observed that a stimulus can still affect conscious-
ness although quite unperceived.
Stratton ^^ points out that since the weights of 100 and 102 grams
are absolutely indistinguishable, when hefted, and the weights of loa
"Jastrow and Nuttall: Proc, Am. S.P.R., Scries i, 1:116-126.
G)ncerning this series of experiments, Tuckett (Evidence for the Super-
natural, p. 505) says: "One could not have a better example both of the impor-
tance of subconscious impressions received through the senses, and of the difficulty
of excluding fallacies in telepathic experiments."
i» Stout : Hibbert Journal, 2 : 47, 62.
1* Peirce and Jastrow : On Small Differences of Sensation. Memoirs NafI
Acad. Sci., Washington, 1884, 3:73-83.
i» Donaldson : The Growth of the Brain. London, 1895, p. 292.
!• Eckener: Ueber die Schwankungen in der Auffasung minimaler Sitmes-
reize. Philos. Stud., 1892, 8:364-5.
1^ Stratton : Experimental Psychology and its Bearing upon Culture. New
York, 1903, pp. 84 ff.
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174 SUBLIMINAL IMPRESSION
and 104 grams are likewise indistinguishabb, each pair of impressions
feeling just alike, and since the weights of 100 and 104 grams are clearly
distinguishable (the threshold of distinguishable difference being 2.5
grams for a weight of 100 grams) "the sensations arising from the
weights of 100 and 102 grams are really different, although the differ-
ence is imperceptible."
Moore ^* in an interesting and important research had his reagents,
in one series of experiments, observe series of five geometrical figures,
presented simultaneously at the rate of one-half second (exposure one-
fourth second) and after a varying number of repetitions, always less
than sufficient for certainty, give judgment as to whether there was a
common figure in the successive series. The reagents were often able
to state with a feeling of certainty that there was a common figure but
they had no idea as to its form. Sensations, indeed, had been received,
competent to render correct judgment, but there was no recognition of
the figure upon which the judgment, under conditions of satisfactory
perception, would be based.
The writer^* in tachistoscopic experiments which made it incum-
bent upon the reagent to record as many letters as possible from an ex-
posure of a i2-letter-card for .085 seconds, found that letters not recog-
nized as seen often insinuated themselves properly into the record. An
incipient or a subliminal impression resulted in more or less vag^e
imagery of the letter, and from this alone the record was tentatively
made.
Bergfson*® reported that a h)rpnotized boy could read Arabic fig-
ures reflected in his eye when their total heights could not have been
more than 1/250 of an inch.
Mrs. Verrall*^ performed a series of 400 experiments in card-
guessing in which she drew the face of the card along the inner edge of
the left thumb, and greatly exceeded the limits of chance in the number
of Right cases both on the number of pips and on the whole card. Al-
though during the first hundred experiments her judgment took con-
scious account of the feeling from the thumb, for the remainder she was
*• Moore: The process of abstraction, University of California Publications
in Psychology, 1910, i : 134-5.
^* Coover : Formal Discipline from the Standpoint of Experimental Psy-
chology, The Psychological Monographs, 1916, No. 87:86, 87, 91.
*<^Bergson: De la simulation inconsdente dans T^t d'hypnotisme. Revue
Philosophique, 1886, 22:527.
*iVerrall: Some experiments on the supernormal acquisition of knowledge.
Proceed, S. P. R., 1895, 11 : 175-185.
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ORIENTATION 175
not conscious of the process and the cards regularly came to her mind
as visual impressions. In another series of 280 guesses while looking at
the back of the card her success was equally marked, although upon
close examination no marks nor indications on the backs could be found ;
and since the success fell off in guessing with closed eyes, she suspected
that the stamping of the pictures and pips on the cards may have pro-
duced indications on the backs, which were subliminally perceived.
Dr. Sauvaire " suggested to a hypnotized girl that there was a por-
trait on the back of a certain card (the King of Clubs) and that she
would still see the portrait after she was awakened. This she did, after
searching out the card from a shuffled pack, by means of some mark of
identification not visible to other persons; and, since she repeated the
feat of finding a card in another pack bearing the same portrait, which
was also the King of Clubs, the mark of identification must have been
a subliminal impression (tactual or visual) of the face of the card which
at no time was turned toward her, or toward the light. Dr. Sauvaire sus-
pecting that she saw through the card.
Perhaps reference should also be made to a few classical illustra-
tions of the influence of subliminal or unnoticed impressions upon re-
productive processes, as well as upon judgment.
Scripture *' (i) showed pairs of words and Japanese signs, as
Hana-AB, and Blume-AB. Then the words were shown alone and the
reagent recorded any word that seemed associated with them. In this
case Hana often called up Blume, and Blume Hana; i. e., a word would
come into mind through an unconscious and absent connection.
(2) He also showed to reagents pictures and small signs; the lat-
ter were not seen clearly since the picture was shown for but a brief in-
terval. Then these signs were shown. Many images associated with
them corresponded to the pictures upon which they were printed ; x, €.,
an unnoticed element of the situation, when focal in attention, revived
the situation.
Jerusalem** reports an interesting case of a "FeldmarshalUieuten-
ant" who while at work with his maps at a table had a sudden vision of
a girl leading an old man ; details of vision clear, whole scene persistent.
The garb suggested the Orient, and then he remembered that he had
» Sauvaire: Observations, d'hyperesth^sie des sens dans T^tat hypnotique.
Revue Philosophique, Paris, 1887, 23 : 333-5.
** Scripture : Ucbcr den associativen Verlauf dcr Vorstellungen. Phil, Stud.,
i9p2, 7:50-146.
'^Jerusalem: Bin Beispiel von Association unbewusste Mittelglieder, PhUo-
sophische Studien, 1894, 10:323-5.
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176 SUBLIMINAL IMPRESSION
seen them 30 years before ; but he could not account for the vivid and
persistent appearance of the scene until he discovered the scent of the
Pyrola uniflora in the flower-glass, a flower he learned in the Orient at
the time of the scene.
And Dr. Thomas,** in Ohrdruf, gives another example of the same
power of unnoticed stimuli to awaken forgotten memories and call them
out into the clear field of consciousness where they are regarded as in-
truders and trespassers. While a student in Berlin, in 1861, one day in
late autumn on his way to college just over the Ebertsbriicke his train
of deep thought was suddenly interrupted by vivid scenes in Huttenthal
where he used to live many years before. Having to hurry to get to
college in time, he recovered his train of thought and dismissed the ex-
perience from his mind. The next morning at the same place the visions
again intruded themselves, and so singular was the experience that he
was impelled to stop and investigate the cause ; after retracing his steps
to the point by the bridge where the experience occurred, he discovered
the odor of Bohemian coal, which had been commonly used in Hiitten-
thal, coming from a ship.
In the psychological laboratory a few investigations have been
made to determine directly whether subliminal visual stimuli influence
judgment. Dunlap^ found some indication that imperceptible shad-
ows exercised an influence upon the judgment of distance. The familiar
Miiller-Lyer illusion-figure was employed. In the preliminary series,
the horizontal-line segments were drawn in black ink i mm. in width
on a screen of white bristol-board ; the oblique lines (arrow-head
formed) were supplied in shadows cast by a variable light behind the
illumined card. Shadows of a square and a circle were employed to de-
termine the necessary depth of shadow ; rear illumination was decreased
until the reagents could not tell whether the figure up was a square or
a circle, before the experiments began. There was evidence that the il-
lusion was caused by the imperceptible shadows, although certain errors
were known not to be excluded. In the main series an electric arc light
was used, by the aid of a system of mirrors, for both general illumina-
tion and shadows; the latter being cast by fibers in a frame screened
from the feagent, and accurately measured as to intensity by the use of
an episkotister. Great care was taken by repeated testing to insure the
*» Thomas: Ein wcitcrcs Bcispiel von Assoziation dutch cine Geruchem(>-
findung als unbewusstcs Mittelglicd. Zeitschrift fur Psychologie, 1896. 12:60-61.
«• Dunlap : Effect of imperceptible shadows on the judgment of distance.
Psychological Review, 1900, 7 '-435
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ORIENTATION 177
imperceptibility of the shadows. The author concluded that his results,
from four reagents, "strongly suggest that the imperceptible illusion-
figure is active in producing psychical results, but for the sake of con-
clusiveness additional experiments should be carried out" under modi-
fied conditions, since the importance of the question requires "the maxi-
mum of careful investigation before we dare call it settled."
Titchener and Pyle *' reported the results of a repetition and exten-
sion of Dunlap's work, likewise using the Miiller-Lyer illusion-figure,
and concluded "that these subliminal shadows, even raised almost to the
limit of perceptibility, have no influence whatsoever upon the judgments
of distance passed by five observers. ... It follows from the whole in-
vestigation that if the subconscious is to be received into experimental
psychology at all, it must find some other means of access than these
imperceptible shadows."
Helen M. Mangro and Dr. Margaret F. Washburn *® following the
suggestion of both preceding investigations, conducted 1,370 experi-
ments with the Miiller-Lyer illusion-figure, substituting, however, faint
penciled lines for the shadows. The figures were held "at such a dis-
tance from the observer that the pencil lines were just not visible." The
tests were made on ten fairly practiced observers. "It seems improba-
ble," they concluded, "that the lines . . . had any influence upon the
judgments, except possibly in . . . two cases. Our results are thus in
accord with those of Titchener and Pyle."
Perhaps the most suggestive experiments, however, from the psy-
chical research point of view, were carried out by Sidis,'* who took his
depaiture from phenomena found in the dissociation of personality.
"Now," he says, "if the hyperaesthetic, subwaking self and the waking
self-consciousness, their inter-relations and their inter-communications,
subsist also in normal life, as they most certainly do in the states of hyp-
nosis, automatic-writing and crystal-gazing — ^if they subsist, I say, also
in the life of every man, we ought to find it out by experiments. We
ought to find that sensory impressions that lie outside the range of sensi-
bility of the waking self, but within the range of the sub-waking self,
that such sensory impressions will still be transmitted to the primary
«^ Titchener and Pyle : The effect of imperceptible shadows on the judgment
of distance. Am. Jr. of Psychology, 1907, 18:388.
«» Mangro and Washburn : The effect of imperceptible lines on the judgment
of distance. Am. Jr. of Psychology, 1908, 19 : 242.
'•Sidis: The Psychology of Suggestion. New York, 1898, ch. XVII,
pp. 162 ff.
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178 SUBLIMINAL IMPRESSION
self}^ The guesses of the subject must rise far above the dead level of
chance. . . . And such is actually the case." (p. 165).
"The first set of experiments I made on myself. My right eye is
amblyopic ; it sees very imperfectly : for it, things are enshrouded in a
mist. When the left eye is closed and a book is opened before me I am
unable to tell letter from figure; Isee only dots, rows of them, all in-
distinct, hazy, oscillating, appearing and disappearing from my field of
vision. When a single letter or figure is presented to my right eye, I
see only a black dot, as a kernel surrounded by a film of mist.
"I asked Mr. B. to make twenty-five slips and write down on each
slip four characters — letters, figures, or both — ^in different combinations,
but so that in all the twenty-five slips the number of letters should equal
the number of figures. When a slip was presented to my right eye, the
other being closed, I had to g^ess which of the characters was letter
and which was figfure. When the first series of twenty-five was ended
the slips were shuffled, and a second series began. ... I made two
groups of experiments with two series in each group. Each series con-
sisted of a hundred experiments, so that there were four hundred ex-
periments in all." This class of experiments was called Oass A.
RESULTS.
General Secondary
First Group Expcri- Character Chance Sight
ments Guessed %
1st Series 100 68 50 18
2d Series 100 72 50 22
Second Group
1st Series 100 70 50 20
2d Series 100 76 50 26
Totals 400 286 71.5% SO 21.5
"In the first series of the first group, out of one hundred characters
sixty-eight were correctly gfuessed. Since there were only two guesses —
letter or figure — 50% must be subtracted, as so much might have been
due to mere chance (we shall find, however, from our other experiments
that the percentage subtracted is too high) ; 18% thus remains in favor
of messages coming from the secondary self — in other words, 18% is
left in favor of secondary sight.
"Out of four hundred experiments made, the general character was
guessed two hundred and eighty-six times, which g^ves 71.5%; sub-
tracting 50%, we have 21.5% in favor of secondary sig^t.
»<>The italics are inserted by the writer.
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ORIENTATION 179
"Figures often speak more eloquently, more convincingly, than vol-
umes. The results of the correct answers as to the general nature of
the character due to secondary sight are far below the actual one, for
in subtracting 50% we subtracted too much, as our experiments will
show farther on; still they were so striking that I communicated them
to Professor James and he was kind enough to encourage me in my
work, and advised me to pursue the inquiry further in the same direc-
tion."
Then followed experiments somewhat modified:
In Class B, five letters (A, B, E, N, T) and five digits (2, 4, 5,7,9)
were chosen, and each capital or digit was written on a separate card.
Sidis was again reagent, looked with his amblyopic eye, and guessed
each time one of those ten particular characters. "Now here each guess
could be either general or both particular and general, or fail altogether.
When ... for instance, I took 5 for 7, or E for N, I guessed rightly
the general nature only of the character shown. When I gave the cor-
rect name I guessed, of course, both the particular and the general na-
ture. When, however, I mistook a letter for a figure or a figure for a
letter, I failed, and failed completely."
In Qass C, the same ten characters were put down, one on each
card, "in faint outlines," and each of eight subjects with normal vision
was required to guess the particular letter on the card which was pre-
sented at such a distance "that the character was outside his range of
vision ; he saw nothing but a mere dot, blurred, and often disappearing al-
together. The subject was told that there were ten cards in the pack,
that the number of letter cards was equal to that of the figure cards,
but he was not told the particular names of the characters. Each time
a card was shown the subject had to give some particular name of char-
acter he took that dot to be. 'They are all alike, mere blurred dots,'
complained the subjects. 'No matter,* I answered; 'just give any letter
or figure that rises in your mind on seeing that dot.' "
In Class D, the letters (hereafter, B, H, K, U, Z) and digits were
printed on the cards in heavy Gothic type about 6.3 mm. in height, the
lines I mm. in thickness, and for the first time were well formed and
uniform. These experiments were made with 20 quite different subjects
who were told that there were five figure cards and five letter cards, but
were not told the particular names of the characters. Two series with
ten experiments each were given each subject separately. "The subject
was placed at such a distance from the card that the character shown
was far out of his range of vision [no distance is given]. He saw
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180 SUBLIMINAL IMPRESSION
nothing but a dim, blurred spot or dot." The subject was required to
name some particular character which that particular dot shown might
be. **It is nothing but mere guess," commented the subjects.
In Class E the subjects and procedure were the same ; but the sub-
jects were told what the particular characters were.
In tfie following table the results are brought together:
TABLE LVIII. SIDIS' RESULTS.
No. of
Right
Per cent
Right
Chance !
Secondary Sight*
Guesses
Gen. Par.
Gen. Par.
Gen. Par.
Gen. Par.
Qass B ..
.... 400
273 188
68.2 47
50 10
47.6 37.0
Oaw C ..
.... 400
255 92
637 23
SO 2.8
40.5 20.2
Class D ..
.... 400
270 103
67.5 25.8
SO 2.8
43.8 22.9
Class E ..
... 400
291 139
72.8 34.7
SO 10
43.7 24.7
♦These values under Secondary Sight need revision. On p. 372, in the
Appendix, Sidis gives his explanation of the formula on the succeeding page which
ts used throughout; and it is evidently wrong. It follows, with application to the
results in Class B:
y= the correct general guesses due to secondary sight
x = tht correct particular guesses due to secondary sight
p = the correct genera] guesses due to chance
Pj = the correct particular guesses due to chance
(p-^y) -^ (Pi+ ^) =68.2 (The % Right as to general character in Class B) [1]
(Pi + •*')= 47 (The % Right as to particular character) [2]
(^ + y) =21.2 [3]
P = y, .-. y=ia6 [4]
Pi = 10 [5]
^ = 37 (Sec. Sight, Particular) [6]
y + x = 47.6 (Sec. Sight, (kneral) [7]
"Now, in equation [3], p is 50 per cent, because each guess has only two
alternatives, letter or figure [thus far all is well] ; in other words, p = y [here
lies the fallacy!]; hence, y=io.6." (p. 372).
By definition, p is the correct general guesses due to chance, expressed in
per cent of the whole number of guesses ; but if there are any correct guesses due
to "secondary sight," this jf must be calculated upon the remaining number of
guesses; it is never 50%, and it has no constant relation to y. The probability
of R guesses by chance must be discriminated from the per cent of all the guesses
which are right by chance. Let us call it py (p sub y) ; since there are but two
general classes of characters the probability of R guesses by chance is 50%
(Pp = SO% = .5) ; and since the only field available for R general guesses by
chance is [i — (x -\- y)],
P = Pv[i — (* + y)].
Another error in the formula is to be found in equation [i]; it should not
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ORIENTATION 181
"As remarked above, the subjects often complained that they could
not see anything at all ; that even the black, blurred, dim spot often dis-
appeared from their field of vision; that it was mere 'guessing'; that
they might as well shut their eyes and guess. How surprised were they
whpn, after the experiments were over, I showed them how many char-
acters they guessed correctly in a general way, and how many times
they gave the full name of the particular character shown!
contain p^, since if a guess of a particular character is right by chance, the char-
acter's general class was either correctly determined by "secondary sight/' in which
case it is included in y, or correctly guessed by chance, in which case it is included
in p. All p^, then, is included in (/> H- y ) . Hence the first equation should be
^ H- jr H- y = Right General Guesses.
Then p^, like p, must be discriminated from the probability of guessing by
chance a particular character, since it represents the per cent of the whole number
of guesses that have been right as to the particular character by chance. Let the
probability be p^\ it, in this case of lo alternatives, is equal to io% or .i, or,
since it bears a definite relation to p (every R general guess due to chance stands
one chance in five of also being a R particular guess), 20% of P or 2p, in case the
general character has not been acquired by "secondary sight"; in case it has,
there are five alternatives and Pm = .2, applying to y ; consequently
P^ = a (p + y).
This revision of the formula, applied to the data of Class B, changes the
results :
/' + ^ + y=.682 [il
p^+x =47 [2I
Subtracting [a] from [i] p -h y — p^= ai2 [3]
P=aip+y) [4]
Substituting [4] in [3] Sip + y) = .212 (5]
p -f y = .265 [61
Subtracting [6] from [i] jr = 417 = 41.7% [7]
p = .S[i-U-fy)l [81
= .S — .2085 — .5y [9]
Substituting in [6] y — .5y = ^5— (5 — .2085) = — .0265 [10]
y = — .053 = — 5.3% [II]
We find in favor of "secondary sight" for the particular character, 41.7%
of the whole number of guesses; but the negative quantity of y, apparently a
chance deviation, seems competent to show that, in this series at least, there was
no "secondary sight" for the general character alone, in operation.
In appraising the results of these experiments, therefore, the values deduced
from the formula must not be taken at face value, owing to errors in the formula.
y was not 10.6%.
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182 SUBLIMINAL IMPRESSION
"Now these experiments tend to prove the presence within us of a
secondary sub-waking self that perceives things which the primary wak-
ing self is unable to get at. The experiments indicate the interrelation
of the two selves. They show that messages are sent up by the second-
ary to the primary self.
"Furthermore, the results seem to show that, in case the particular
message fails, some abstract general account of it still reaches the upper
consciousness. An inhibited particular idea still reaches the primary self
as an abstract idea. An abstract general idea in the consciousness of
the waking self has a particular idea as its basis in the sub-waking self."
(p. 171).
"While the above-mentioned experiments on secondary sight were
under way another set of experiments was carried out by me the pur-
pose of which was to tap directly the suggestibility of the secondary
self, and to find out the influence the subconscious has on the primary
consciousness.
"The mechanism of the experiments was as follows: On slips of
paper I made a series of complicated drawings. Each slip had a differ-
ent pattern. The subject had to look at the pattern of the drawing for
ten seconds, and then the slip was withdrawn and he had to reproduce
the drawing from memory — a task extremely difficult. It took him
about fifteen seconds and more before he could make an3rthing bearing
the slightest resemblance to the drawing shown.
"When he finished the drawing an elongated cardboard with eight
digits pasted in a row was shown to him and the subject had to choose
whichever digit he pleased. Now, on the margin of each slip was written
a digit contained in the number of digits on the cardboard from which the
subject had to choose. The subject, not having the slightest suspicion
of the real purpose of the experiments, being perfectly sure that the
whole matter was concerning imitation of the drawings and being as-
sured by me that the choosing of the digits on the cardboard was nothing
but a device to 'break up the attention' in passing from one drawing
to another, and being besides intensely absorbed in the contemplation
and reproduction of the drawing, which was extremely complicated — ^the
subject, I say, wholly disregarded the figure on the margin — ^he did not
even notice it. I so fully succeeded in allaying all suspicions and dis-
tracting the attention of the subjects that when Professor James inter-
rogated one of them, an intelligent man, he was amazed at the hitter's
complete ignorance as to what was actually going on."
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ORIENTATION 183
". . . The upper primary self, being completely absorbed with the
drawing, did not notice the figure, or, if it did, it soon learned to disre-
gard it, because he thought it insignificant, and because it would only
distract his attention. But although the figure was not noticed and fully
disregarded (a fact I was careful to find out from the subjects in an in-
direct way), it still impressed the sense organ, reached the secondary
self, which took it as a suggestion, sending it up as a message to the
primary self or personaUty and influencing the latter's choice. This
choice suggestion is strikingly analogous to post-hypnotic suggestion. . . .
"Before giving the results let me say a few words as to the classifi-
cation of the experiments. When I started my first experiments of this
kind a suspicion crept into my mind that it might be fully possible that
in case a suggestion given did not succeed it might still succeed partially
as mediate suggestion, by arousing some association which will be
obeyed. For instance, in giving d as a suggestion, 6 itself might not be
chosen, but some number that succeeds or precedes it, such as 5 or 7, or
possibly a numeral next to the suggested one in place, say i or 2, for I
arranged my figures on the cardboard in such a way as to break up the
natural succession of the digits. I was therefore careful to make two
separate classes for these two kinds of association suggestions — ^namely,
suggestion by locality and suggestion by numbers, which we may term
locality and number suggestions. The results of my experiments showed
me the mediate suggestion was here of but little importance.
"I made 1000 experiments and operated with 20 subjects, of which
16 were fresh ones, not having taken part in any of my other experi-
ments.
"The figures on the cardboard were arranged thus : 26471538.
Results.
Out of the 1000 experiments the number which had been on the
drawing was guessed 394 times. Since the chance of guessing right
is 12.5% or .125, X (the influence of causes besides chance) = .394 —
[.125(1— ^)]= 30.7%:
^=.394— [125(1 — ^)]
= .269 H- .i2Sjr
jr— .i2Sjr=.269
.875^ = .269
^ = .307=30.7%
(Sidis* formula, p. 377, makes ;r = 32.i).
"How shall we explain the fact that in our experiments the percent-
age of correct guesses is far above the one due to chance alone? Two
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184 SUBLIMINAL IMPRESSION
theones are on the field to account for this fact : one is the well-known
unconscious cerebration, and the other is my own point of view, or what
I may call the psycho-physiological theory.
"On the theory of unconscious cerebration, each figure shown
outside the range of vision made an impression on the retina. This
impression was transmitted to the sensorium, to the central ganglia of
the brain, the occipital lobes, exciting there physiological processes that
are not strong enough to rise above the threshold of consciousness.
In short, each figure stimulated the peripheral sense organ, giving rise
to a central but unconscious physiological process. Now, according to
the theory of unconscious cerebration, it was this unconscious physio-
logical process that helped the subject to form correct guesses.
"The psycho-physiological theory, while agreeing with the theory
of unconscious cerebration as to the physiological account, makes a step
further. Each figure certainly made an impression on the peripheral
sense org^ and induced central physiological processes, but these proc-
esses had their psychical accompaniments. Far from being mere
mechanical, imconscious work, these physiological processes were accom-
panied by consciousness ; only this consciousness was present not to the
upper, but to the lower subconscious self. ... In short, the percentage
of correct guesses in our experiments can not be accounted for on the
theory of unconscious cerebration; there must therefore have been
conscious perception.
"Furthermore, to have a correct general idea of a scarcely percep-
tible dot as being letter or figure, there must evidently be some percep-
tion of the particular traits of the dot; there must be a subconscious
perception of the particular letter or figure." (pp. 177-8).
I have quoted Sidis liberally for the reason that his experiments
are so highly suggestive of ways in which judgment might be influenced,
and that they offer a means of studying psychical phenomena with
psychological profit. Professor James wrote an introduction to the book,
in which he says: "By other [these] ingenious experiments Dr. Sidis
tries to show that the 'subliminal' or 'ultra-marginal' portion of the mind
may in normal persons distinguish objects which the attentive senses find
it impossible to name. These latter experiments are incomplete, but they
open the way to a highly important psychological investigation." (p. vi).
If we treat the data in Classes B, C, D, and E, with revised formulae
we find values which we may compare with the probable per cent {p),
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ORIENTATION 185
and the limit of chance deviation (L).*^ In the following table, \r/L
and y/L indicate how many times the "secondary sight" value (jr or y)
contains the Limit of Chance Deviation, and are therefore measures of
the reliability of the x and y values; x is the influence beyond chance
causing R guesses of the particular character ; y is the influence beyond
chance causing R guesses with respect to the general character of th^
symbols :
TABLE LIX.
Sidis' Values Revised.
Particular Right. General Right.
. K , , A ^
X p L x/L y p L y/L
Class B 41.7 10 6.4 6.5 -5.3 50 10.6 ao
Class C 20.3 2.8 3.5 5.7 7.1 50 10.6 0.7
Class D 23.3 2.8 3.5 6.7 11.7 50 10.6 I.I
Class E 25.2 10 6.4 3.9 20.2 so 10.6 1.9
Concerning the influence working for Right guesses with respect
to the general character of the symbols, the table indicates that in
Qasses B and C it is negligible if not absent, and in Classes D and E
it is small, but, perhaps, unquestionable. Since it is the y values upon
which the^ hypothesis of an elaboration or classification, below the thresh-
old of conscious activity, of particulars received as subliminal impres-
sions, depends, it would be interesting to know whether the digits and
capitals differed in any noticeable respect in the font of Gothic type
from which they were printed; the values of y become distinguishable
from chance variation only in the series in which these printed letters
were used {D and £). Should the digits be narrower or shorter or
lighter than the capitals,*^ for instance, the classification would not need
to be assumed to depend upon a subliminal perception of the particular
characters and consequently would not necessarily involve a more subtle
process than the suggestion effected by the subliminal impression of the
symbols which leads to Right Guesses of the particular characters. This
matter of subliminal elaboration needs further careful investigation.
2pq ^
.iL = 3j?J
^*We reproduce here the same letters and digits as were used, in a similar
font of Gothic type. The digits are shorter, narrower, and lighter in the line than
the capitals:
BHKUZ24579
Fig. T. Characters used by Sidis.
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186 SUBLIMINAL IMPRESSION
The influence working for Right Guesses of the particular symbols,
on the other hand, is definite and unquestionable. But, as Dunlap sug-
gested, the influence of subliminal impressions upon the judgment is an
h3rpothesis of so great importance, for psychology in general, and for
psychical research in particular, that we must be very careful in veri-
fying the fact. Many subtle errors will inevitably be encountered in so
difficult a research, and safety necessarily lies in caution. The precise
degree of invisibility, since there are no real thresholds outside of con-
ventional concepts, needs to be determined, for a visual stimulus, and
the fluctuation of acuity and the effect of repeated trials upon accommo-
dation must be reckoned with in establishing and maintaining conditions
of subliminal impression. Introspective check would be of the highest
value, if the reagents are capable of accurate introspection; and the
integrity and the scientific attitude of the reagent must be insured.
Sufficiently full and accurate descriptions of the conditions of experi-
mentation should be published in the report of the work to enable others
to pass critical judgment upon the results or to repeat faithfully the
investigation.
These suggestions for caution are not intended as a criticism upon
Dr. Sidis' interesting and original experiments in the Harvard labora-
tory, for his work was that of the pioneer and altogether admirable, but
as an intimation of the relation our own investigation bears to his, since
we sought a more definite control of experimental conditions. Our
estimate of the importance of his work is indicated by the fact that our
investigation was patterned after his.
Before turning to our own work, however, we should notice the
report, of another research which followed Dr. Sidis.
Stroh, Shaw, and Washburn" performed three series of experi-
ments, in the psychological laboratory at Vassar College, which they
describe as follows : "In the first of these, a procedure like that of Sidis
was followed. The cards used bore each of them one of the first ten
letters of the alphabet, and they were held at such a distance that the
observers could barely detect the letter as a faint spot on the card. The
observer was told that the letter on the card was one of the letters from
A to /. In a large number of experiments, then, the probability would
be that one-tenth of the guesses at the letters would be correct, if the
guessing was not subject to any influence.
»» Stroh, Shaw, and Washburn : A study in guessing. Am\ Jr, of Psychology,
1908, 19:243-245.
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ORIENTATION 187
"In the second series, the conditions were rendered more difficult by
enclosing the letters in rectangles. It was thus made almost impossible
to be guided in guessing by the general bulk of a letter, — ^as, for instance,
B might in the first series be distinguished from /.
"In the third series, the letters were whispered instead of being
shown on cards. It was found necessary in this series to rule out every
experiment where the observer heard the slightest sound from the whis-
pering. If anything at all were heard it often caused the letter to be
recognized, especially such letters as C, G. H, and /. The experimenter
would therefore give the observer a 'Ready' signal, and then whisper
the letter so softly that no sound whatever could be heard at the distance
at which the observer sat."
Results.
The probability for Right guesses by chance in each of the three
series is io%. In Series I, individual reagents made from 50 to 330
guesses each, and their per cents of R cases were: 16, 16, 22, 24, 32, 33,
38, 38, 46, 48, 51, 55, 74. Some of the observers "obtained so high a
percentage of R guesses as to suggest that they must have been almost
able to read the letters, although they declared in good faith that they
could not."
In Series II, the reagents made from 50 to 240 guesses each, and
their per cents of R cases were: 8, 18, 21, 24, 34, 37, 63, 67. In this
series "The possibility of reading in the ordinary sense was much less,
... yet two of the observers guessed right in more than half of the
cases."
In Series III, the reagents made from 100 to 600 guesses each, and
their per cents of R cases were: 10, 12, 13, 16, 16, 19, 23, 24, 31, 39.
In this series, "where the letters were whispered, since every case in
which the observer heard the slightest sound of the whisper was ruled
out, the conditions should have made ordinary perception impossible. It
is noteworthy that although no observer fell below 10% of R guesses
three reagents made little above that amount. Yet two reagents . . .
show that their guessing must have been somehow influenced quite
decidedly in the right direction, and the others also give evidence of
such influence, though in a less marked degree."
Disregarding individual differences, and aggregating the guesses
and the R cases for the three respective series, we get results shown in
the following table ; x represents the influence beyond chance ;•* p, the
W;r=%R— [p(i — jt)].
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L
x/L
2.9
"^
4.3
8j9
2.5
7.1
188 SUBLIMINAL IMPRESSION
probability for R cases by chance; L, the limit of chance deviation;^
and x/L shows the reliability or value of the x magnitudes ( i being zero
value) :
TABLE LX.
Results of Stroh, Shaw, and Washburn.
Number of
Series Reagents Experiments %R ' x p
1 13 1816 J9.6 32.9 10
11 8 890 44.6 384 10
III 10 2556 26.0 17.8 10
The last colunm of the table shows that the x values are many
times the range of chance deviation, and that they decrease down the
series ; considering the amount of these values, and the fact that of the
31 individual sets but one falls below the probable chance value (10%)
in R cases, we must recognize a strong and fairly general influence
beyond chance in the guessing, which, presumably, is the effect of sub-
liminal impression. The investigators concluded: "Our results, then
confirm, on the whole, those of Sidis and show that with certain
observers at least judgments may be influenced in the direction of cor-
rectness when the observer is unconscious that any such influence is
present. Whether this effect is due to a secondary self with superior
senses, as Sidis believes, or to a physiological result of the stimulus, too
slight to affect consciousness on its own account, as it were, is a ques-
tion to which our experiments can furnish no answer."
But perhaps we are too liberal in our estimates, toward the
hypothesis of subliminal influence; chance may not be limited to the
theoretical 10% in the Series I and II, since the reagent might, volun-
tarily or involuntarily yet consciously, make use of some general aspects
of the indefinite stimulus, and thus raise his chances for R cases. For
example, suppose the letters were traced, as were those of Sidis, in
Qass C, in the form of capitals, then we might have the following
classification :
B E H, full, heavy appearance of the blurred stimulus, Chance 33
C G D, rounded, open, appearance of the blurred stimulus, Chance 33
I J» long, narrow, appearance of the blurred stimulus, Chance 50
If we assume that the respective 10 letters were exhibited equally often,
and the letters A and F remain wholly indefinite as stimuli (Chance .10),
w As before, (pp. 85, 185). L = 3J V *
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ORIENTATION 189
then, for a long series of experiments the chance of R cases would be
raised to 32%. '• Of course, this method of guessing may not have been
generally used. The question is, was it used at all? If so, then our x
values for Series I and II are too large. That this cause has been oper-
ative seems to be indicated by the fall of the x/L value in Series II below
that in Series I, and it is doubtful whether the square inscribing the let-
ter, in Series II, would necessarily shield the stimuli altogether from sim-
ilar classification, although its influence would obviously be in this
direction. However, since all conscious impression was ruled out in
Series III, which shows an undoubted influence beyond chance, the de-
crease in the xJL value in Series II might have been caused by a lower-
ing of the stimulus proper further below the threshold of conscious
perception, thus decreasing somewhat its effectiveness.
Careful introspections and modification of stimuli may, in future
researches, definitely settle the questions raised by these two investiga-
tions which attacked directly the problem of the influence of subliminal
impression upon judgment. In the face of the results the presumption
lies much in its favor ; but its status will be better assured when condi-
tions, amounts, and interpretations, perhaps, can be confidently stated.
»• For A and F, .10 X 2 = .20
B D H. .33 X 3 = .999
C G D, .33 X 3 = .999
I J, .50 X 2 = i.ooo
Total 3.199 Average, .3199 or 31.99%.
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190
SUBUMINAL IMPRESSION
EXPERIMENTS.
In recognition of the importance, for Psychical Research, of the
hypothesis of the influence of subliminal impression upon judgment,
several series of experiments were devised and carried out, under condi-
tions of experimentation suggested, directly or indirectly, by the investi-
gations reviewed above. The general principle held in mind, however,
was a more definite control of the conditions of experiment: (i) As
to objective conditions, presentation of stimuli was controlled by the
use of apparatus permitting the measurement of the time of exposure;
the stimuli were uniform, being prepared by stamping or printing de-
vices; and the distance of the reagent from the stimuli was made defi-
nite. (2) As to subjective conditions, the instructions made provision
for an intermediate grade of judgment based upon partial perception;
and introspections were required of some of the reagents.
The research waa carried on during two school-years, 1914-15 and
1915-16, with the assistance of students selected from the large classes
in General Psychology. There were 118 reagents; their vision safely,
for our purpose, assumed to be normal. And 15^1 experiments, dis-
tributed according to experimental conditions in the following table,
were performed :
TABLE LXI.
Experiments on Subliminal Impression.
Div. I. Wirth-Tachistoscopc ....
Div. II. Wundt-Tachistoscopc
" (Foveal Vision)
Div. III. " (Peripheral « )
Div. IV. (Miscellaneous)
1914-1S
Number of
Re- Experi-
agents ments
12 iiao
191S-16
Number of
Re- Experi-
agents ments
26 3027
Total
Re- Experi-
agents ments
J8 4147
IS
12
1870
954
6
28
1350
4300
21
40
19
3220
5254
Total 39 3944 60 8677 "8 15441
In Division I, the Wirthian tachistoscope was used and the time of
exposure was cut down below the limen for perception : in Division II, the
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EXPERIMENTS WITH WIRTHIAN TACHISTOSCOPE 191
Wundtian type of tachistoscope was used and with an exposure less than
the reaction-time of the eye the distance was increased to minimal per-
ception ; in Division III, the stimulus exhibited in a Wundtian tachisto-
scope was presented to peripheral vision only; in the first two divisions
it was presented, as in preceding investigations, to foveal vision.
Division I. With the Wirthian Tachistoscope.
In the first division of experiments, we used a Wirthian tachisto-
scope with a revolving disc 97.5 cm. in diameter. Adjustable shutters
over a window on the edge of the disc permitted the slit through which
the stimulus appeared to be varied in width for the purpose of varying
the time of exposure, without changing the speed of rotation.*^ The
letters B H K U Z and digits 2 4 5 7 9 were printed in black from
rubber Roman type 21 nmi. high** upon cards which slipped into a
holder behind the disc, and by means of electrically operated traps
dropped into position for exposure during the revolution of the disc.
This position lay behind a metal screen, painted gray, uniform with the
disc, which prevented distraction that might be caused by the visible
movement of the shutters through the point of fixation.
Procedure.
The experimenter manipulated the stimulus cards behind the ap-
paratus, rotated the disc by hand at the rate of once a second, gave a
pre-signal about 15 seconds and a signal about 2 seconds before each stim-
ulus. The reagents sat 4 meters from the disc, from which position the
visual angle of the letters was 14.36'. At the beginning of the 1914-15
series, for reagents 1-12, the time of exposure was set at 9.5 sigma, but
as practice effect increased the number of twice-underscored records it
was decreased to 7.70^ 5.7a and 4.9^^, the limen for 50% twice-imder-
scored records being about 7.70 ; the room was slightly darkened by the
drawing of blinds, necessary to exclude shadows cast on the cards by
the screen from cross-light, but the cards were well illuminated. In
1915-16, when the apparatus was stationed in another room which elim-
inated cross-light shadows and permitted the light from the windows
•^From the center of the revolving disc to the calibration on the shutters
over the center of the letter, the distance is 39.9 cm., making the circumference
aso cm. (2Ji X 39.9 = 250). With rotation once a second, then, 250 cm. = i second;
2.5 cm. = .oi second = 10^ ; 2 cm. = 8*^ ; 5 mm. = 2<^ ; etc.
^This reduced facsimile of the characters used as stimuli shows their form:
BHKUZS4S7 9
Fig. 2. Characters used in the Wirthian Tachistoscope.
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192 SUBLIMINAL IMPRESSION
back of the reagents to fall directly upon the stimulus, the experiments
began, for reagents 13-38, with an exposure of io<^ and decreased rapid-
ly through 8a, 6a, 4.8a, 4a, 3.2a, to 2.80, 2.6a, and 2a, with the limen of
50% twice-underscored records at about 4.6a; 71.1% of all records
from these reagents were made on exposures less than 3a.
The reagents were instructed to look closely at the stimulus, im-
mediately after exposure to record their perception of the letter or digit,
or, in case none was perceived, to record a guess of a letter or digit.
The guess was not to be formed by any scheme or rule but was to be
purely spontaneous. In case part of the stimulus was sufficiently seen
to influence the g^ess, as of a curved or a straight-line letter, the record
was to be underscored once, since it is a partial perception or an infer-
ence with the range of error in guessing restricted ; if the stimulus was
perceived, the record was to be underscored twice ; thus, the records of
the spontaneous guesses alone remained without underscores. In Series
I, the reagent understood that any letter of the alphabet or any of the
ten digits might be exposed ; in Series II, he was given a list of the 10
symbols to which he limited his guesses. The order of exposed letters
and digits was worked out by chance before the experiment began, and
modified in such a way that each letter and each digit appeared five
times in each half of a set of 100 experiments.
The work was given in five sections, consisting of 7, 5, 9, 10, and
7, reagents respectively. Provision for group experiments was made
for the purpose of determining individual variation in perception. The
reagents worked independently, however, and in silence. Experimental
hours for the reagent came one week apart, at the same hour of day, in
the same room, and three or four sittings were required to finish the
work. Reagents, with a few exceptions, took 100 or 150 experiments
each. The time between experiments varied from one to two minutes;
practiced procedure, as planned, required one minute. It is thought that
fatigue was not induced.
Results.
Series I. In this series, the reagents did not know the particular
symbols shown and consequently did not confine their guesses to those
symbols. The probability for R cases by chance is 2.8%. The follow-
ing table gives the whole number and the number Right for (a) per-
ceptions (twice-underscored records), (b) inferences (once-underscored
records), and (c) guesses; also the per cent R for the guesses; and
the whole number of experiments ; for the respective reagents :
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EXPERIMENTS WITH WIRTHIAN TACHISTOSCOPE
193
TABLE LXII.
R Cases. Wirthian Tachistoscopc. p = 2.8%
Reagent Perceptions Inferences Guesses Experiments
No. R No. R No. R %R
1914-15 / 29 27 49 26 22 2 91 '00
2 25 23 29 19 46 4 8.7 100
3 30 4 ^ZZ 30
4 81 7 o 65 2 3.1 80
5 75 8445344 60
6 ........ so o o 50
8 3 2 12 7 15 4 27.0 30
9 II 10 10 6 92 ^o 30
^^__ .^_« -^— • — ^ —
Totals 83 68 115 62 282 20 480
% 82 54 7.1
1915-16 Jj 7 7 4 3 139 4 2.9 150
/^ 12 12 10 3 128 9 70 '50
/5 70 52 27 6 53 6 1 1.3 150
16 20 17 46 8 84 2 24 150
// 41 39 41 21 68 10 14.7 150
18 40 31 20 4 60 7 "7 lao
19 35 33 19 7 66 7 10.6 120
20 21 6 2 66 3 4.5 74
21 13 4 39 3 18 2 I I.I 70
22 18 17 II 9 10 3 30.0 39
23 14 14 6 4 46 3 6.5 66
^^ 33 32 7 3 60 5 8.3 100
25 38 38 32 31 30 17 56.7 100
26 19 19 28 22 53 7 13.2 100
27 43 41 27 19 30 10 33.3 100
^ 15 14 2 I 83 14 16.9 100
2g 9 7 21 12 70 2 2.9 100
SO 41 36 28 8 31 2 64 100
31 26 24 20 7 54 II 204 100
j^ 68 67 24 16 83 37.5 100
33 47 39 38 10 15 I 6-7 100
34 4 4 40 4 56 I 1.8 100
35 4 3 18 9 78 5 64 100
36 13 II 83 74 9 12.2 95
37 10 10 10 3 73 I 14 93
38 8 7 18 5 74 6 8.1 100
Totals 650 579 550 222 1527 150 2727
% 89.0 404 9-8
Grand Totals 733 647 665 284 1809 170 3207
% 88.3 42.7 9.4»
♦This value is not an average of the per cents listed in the %R column, but
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194 SUBLIMINAL IMPRESSION
The footings of the table show that of the 3207 experiments in this
series, 733 yielded perceptions, and 665 partial perceptions or infer-
ences, leaving 1809 guesses, of which 170 or 9.4% are Right as to the
particular symbol. From other tabulations we learn that the guesses
Right as to general character (letter for letter, and digit for digit)
equal 53.8% as against 50%, the probable per cent by chance.
Leaving the central values and their significance for later discus*
sion, we may note from the table that of the 34 reagents who contrib-
uted guesses, only 4 fall below the probable chance value in the per cent
of R cases, that 7 are over 20%, and that 25 are over the largest chance
value as calculated from the aggregate restdts (# + 3A/-^=2.8-t-
1.65 = 445%). The distribution curve indicates that for over a fourth
of the reagents, the results are probably chance values, as may be seen
from the following distribution of the per cents of R cases :
0
64
10.6
204
M
64
ii.i
22.0
1.8
6.5
"^
27.0
24
6.7
11.7
30.0
2.9
7.0
12.2
33.3
2.9
8.1
13.2
37.S
3.1
8;}
13.3
56.7
44
S.7
14.7
45
9.1
16.9
Series II. In this series the reagents knew the particular symbols
to be presented and limited their guesses to them. Probability of R
cases by chance is 10%. The results tabulated as before are shown in
Table LXIII.
is calculated on the base of the total number of Guesses (1809), being the per cent
of the aggregate of R guesses. In succeeding tables the corresponding value is
similarly derived.
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EXPERIMENTS WITH WIRTHIAN TACHISTOSCOPE
195
TABLE LXIII.
R Cases. Wirthian Tachistoscopc. p = io%
Reagent Perceptions Inferences Guesses Experiments
No. R No. R No. R %R
1914-15 4 63 2 o 12 1 8.3 ao
5 31 31 5 4 41 25.0 40
6 28 28 7 6 15 3 20.0 SO
7 A7 A7 29 28 24 13 54.0 100
^ 12 9 39 7 19 2 10.5 70
9 42 38 15 8 13 I 7.7 70
10 57 56 25 IS 18 2 I I.I 100
11 23 17 31 12 46 4 8.7 100
12 33 28 28 14 29 7 24,2 90
Totals 279 255 181 94 180 34 640
% 91 52 18.9
1915-16 $2 00 o o so 5 10.0 50
33 II I o 48 3 6.2 50
34 00 I o 49 4 8.2 50
35 00 12 3 38 6 15.8 50
37 00 I o 49 4 8.2 50
38 00 5 o 4S 4 8-9 50
Totals I I 20 3 279 26 300
% 15.0 9-3
Grand Totals 280 2s6 201 97 459 ^ 940
% 91.5 48.3 13.1
We find that out of a total of 940 experiments, 280 were percep-
tions (twice-underscored records), and 201 were partial perceptions or
inferences (once-underscored), which leaves 459 as guesses, of which
13.1% were Right in particular and, from other tabulation we learn,
S7% were Right in general (letter for letter, and digit for digit) as against
the probable per cents of R cases by chance of 10% and 50% respec-
tively. The following is the distribution of the individual per cents of
the Right guesses on the particular character:
6.2 8.7 15.8
7.7 8.9 20.0
8.2 lo.o 24.2
8.2 10.5 25.0
8.3 1 1.0 54.0
Only three, or a fifth, of the fifteen values are definitely above the
limit of chance for the aggregate, (/^ + 3 J^ = 10 + 9-5 = i9-5%),
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196 SUBLIMINAL IMPRESSION
and these fall in the 1914-15 part of the table. Records show that in
the 1914-15 experiments, 79% of the guesses were made on exposures
of (P, and 20% on exposures of &y, while the limen of 50% twice-
underscored records was 7.7^; and that in the 191 5-16 experiments all
the guesses were made on a 40 exposure during a dark, murky day, the
limen under ordinary light being 4.60; also that the former conditions of
perception, which yielded but 31.1% of guesses, were much better than
the latter conditions of perception, which yielded 72.6% of guesses. G>n-
sequently, the stimuli of 191 5-16 were much below the threshold of per-
ception, and we should, perhaps, consider the results of the 1914-15
experiments separately, although their paucity in numbers (180 guesses)
will greatly decrease the reliability of the central measures : R cases on
the particular character are 18.9%, and on the general character 65%, as
against the probable chance values of 10% and 50%, respectively, while
die respective chance-limits are 19.5% and 65.8%.
In the appraisal of the results of both Series I and Series II we
should, perhaps, refine slightly our method. As was pointed out above,
by Sidis, in our exposition of his results, to reckon the chance R cases
upon the basis of all the cases (including those R cases due to other
causes) gives us a value too large for the deduction from the total R
cases to find the number of R cases due to extra-chance causes. If we
apply the formula we derived for the purpose of testing Sidis' results,**
we shall get truer values :
TABLE LXIV.
Summary of Wirthian Tachistoscope Results.
jr = the % of R cases on the particular character due to extra-chance causes,
y = the % of R cases on the general character due to extra-chance causes,
^ = the % of R cases to be expected by chance,
L = the % of R cases beyond which chance is not expected to deviate from p.
Particular Right
General Right
Guesses
X
P L
x/L
y
p
L
y/L
Series I ... 1809
6.8
2& i.6s
4.1
I.O
50
4.98
0.20
Series II:
Total 459
2.15
10 5.94
0.36
11.85
50
9.9
la
1914-15 180
74
10 9-48
0.78
22.60
50
15.8
M
«• Vide, pp. 180 f.
The general form of the formula is :
jr + y + ^ = R General
jr + :r^ (y + /^) = R Particular
^/
in which R General and R Particular are the per cents of the Right guesses, and
pm and p9 express the probability of chance for R Particular and R General guesses
respectively.
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EXPERIMENTS WITH WIRTHIAN TACHISTOSCOPE 197
G)nceniing Series I it is definitely certain that there was some
cause beyond chance working for R cases on the particular character,
the X value being 4.1 times the chance-limit; and that there was no
subliminal classification tending toward R cases on the general character
of the stimulus, the y value being only .2, or 20%, of the chance-limit.
Discussion on the possible nature of the extra-chance causes will be
taken up after the quantitative results have all been inspected.
In Series II, we find, if we consider the total series, that the x
value is only 36% of the chance-limit, if the 1914-15 part of the series,
78%, which is no certain indication that x is different from chance.
But the y values are 1.2 and 1.4 times the chance-limit, respectively,
indicating the presence of an extra-chance classifying process, though
in no high degree.
Should we surmise that the approach of the x values toward their
limits indicates the probability of the presence of extra-chance causes,
and appeal to the individual cases showing the higher percentages of
R cases, we find that, although, as has already been noted, a fifth of the
cases fall above the chance-limit for the aggregate results, only one case
exceeds its own chance-limit: that of Reagent 7, (Number of experi-
ments, 24; per cent R, 54; chance-limit, 25; Probable per cent R-f
chance-limit, 35.9). This is positive evidence of an extra-chance cause,
although it is greatly inferior to the evidence in Series I in which not
only the aggregate results positively identify it, but of the individual
cases, nine, or a fourth, at least exceed in R cases their own chance-
limits.
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198 SUBLIMINAL IMPRESSION
Division II. With the Wundtian Tachistoscope.
In the second division of our experiments a tachistoscope of the
Wundtian type was used. It held the white cards, 10.3 X 152 cm., on
a hinged receiver back of a falling screen the movement of which was
concealed by a larger stationary screen. Both screens were made of black
pasteboard. A capital or digit, 2.5 mm. high, was typed in Elite type,
with a Remington Standard Typewriter No. 7, on the center of each
card. From the reagent's position, at a distance of 2 meters from the
card, the letter subtended a visual angle of 4.32'. The conditions of
perception were such that the reagents all together perceived about 11%
of the characters, although three of the seventeen perceived none and
one perceived about 30%. The ten characters used were B H K U Z
2 4 5 7 9.*® The order of the presentation, determined by modified
chance, provided for the exposure of each character five times in each
half of a set of 100 experiments.
Procedure,
The large black screen concealed the experimenter and his manip-
ulation of the apparatus from the reagent's view. The cards were
placed on the hinged receiver in the back of the tachistoscope. After
the falling screen was drawn up and the card was in place, a point of
fixation on the screen held the eyes of the reagent upon the position of
the character behind the screen. A signal was g^ven 2 seconds before
the exposure. The reagent recorded the character, if it was perceived,
and underscored his record twice ; if he did not perceive the character,
but perceived lines or curves or an)rthing serviceable for limiting his
range of error in guessing, he recorded his inference or guess, and
underscored his record once; if his judgment was a pure guess, he
left his record without underscores. In Series I the reagent understood
that any of the 26 letters or of the 10 digits was likely to appear, mak-
ing his chance for R cases 2.8% (i : 36) ; in Series II, he was g^ven a
list of the characters to which he confined his guesses, making chance
10%. Reagents 5, (5, and 7; 12, /j, and I4\ and 15 and 16, worked
in groups; the rest worked alone. The rate of experiments was about
one a minute ; sittings as before came weekly.
*<>The following is a facsimile (natural size) of the characters:
BHK0Z24579
Fig. 3. Characters used in the Wundtian Tachistoscope.
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EXPERIMENTS WITH WUNDTIAN TACHISTOSCOPE 199
Results.
The results of Series I, tabulated in the same manner as before,
are shown in the following table :
TABLE LXV.
Wundtian Tachistoscope.
p = 2.8%.
Reagent Percept
ions Inferences
Guesses
Experiments
No.
R No.
R
No.
R
%R
15
/
16
6
84
10
11.9
100
^
28
11
72
9
12.5
100
4
. .
100
2
2.0
100
5
5
0 9
2
136
II
74
ISO
6
5
2
145
20
13^
ISO
8
8
6 45
6
47
2
4<3
100
9
7
2 58
5
35
0
0
100
10
20
3
80
4
5.0
100
II
4
2 31
6
65
7
10.8
100
16
12
54
31 77
18
119
12
10.1
250
13
71
25 57
7
122
10
8.2
250
J4
ZZ
21 127
24
90
10
II. I
250
J5
58
22 70
0
72
2
2.8
200
16
49
27 48
8
103
6
5.8
200
17
20
2
80
0
0
100
Total
.. 289
136 611
100
1350
105
2250
% ..
47.0
16.3
7.8
Of the 2250 experiments, 289 yielded perceptions, 611 inferences,
and 1350 guesses; 7.8% of the latter were Right with respect to the
particular character, and 55.7% as to the general character, of the stim-
ulus, as against the probable per cents of chance of 2.8% and 50% re-
spectively. The distribution of the per cents R as to the particular char-
acter indicated that about half of them include extra-chance causes:
0
2
6
10
II
0
2
7
10
12
2
4
9
10
20
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200 SUBLIMINAL IMPRESSION
Series 11. The results of Series II are given in the following table :
TABLE LXVI.
Wundtian Tachistoscopc p = io%.
1914-1S
Reagent Pcrccpti
ons
Inferences
Guesses
Experiments
No.
R
No.
R
No.
R
%R
IS
/
5
3
9
2
86
9
10.5
100
2
. ,
24
5
76
9
11.9
100
3
,.
100
8
&o
100
5
12
7
19
9
69
10
14.5
100
6
2
I
10
4
88
20
22.7
100
7
2
I
9
3
59
5
8.5
70
8
6
5
36
14
58
7
12.1
100
9
16
8
55
12
29
4
13^
100
16
17
4
4
6
2
90
24
26.6
100
Totals
. 47
29
168
51
655
96
770
%
61.7
30^
14.6
Of the 770 records, 47 were perceptions, 168 inferences, and 655
guesses ; of die latter 14.6% were Right with respect to the particular
character, and 55.7% with respect to the general character, of the stim-
ulus, as against the probable per cents of 10% and 50% respectively.
All but two of the per cents in the tabulation are indistinguishable from
chance.
Refining our method of inspection of the results, as before, by the
use of our formula, we find the values, for the two series of experi-
ments, given in the following table :
TABLE LXVII.
Summary of Wundtian Tachistoscope Results.**
Particular Character General Character
Guesses %R p x L x/L %R p y L y/L
Series I 2250 7.8 2.8 4.94 1.8 2,7 55.7 SO 6.3 5.78 I.I
Series II 770 146 10 432 498 0.87 557 So 71 8.28 0.86
In Series I, there was a definite extra-chance cause working for R
particular guesses amotmting to 2.7 times the chance-limit; for R gen-
eral guesses amounting to i.i times the chance-limit. In Series II, since
Ae chance-limit was only approached by 87% and 86% respectively,
there is no certain indication of an extra-chance cause in the aggregate
«i For the meaning of the rubrics, see similar table on page 196, supra.
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EXPERIMENTS WITH WUNDTIAN TACHISTOSCOPE 201
results. The two individual cases, however, to which reference was
made above, safely exceed their own chance-limits and give positive
evidence of an extra-chance influence upon the guessing of the particu-
lar characters.
This completes our investigations of the influence of subliminal im-
pression upon judgments given upon tachistoscopic presentations to
foveal vision, and it is opportune to canvass the situation with a view of
interpreting the nature of the extra-chance influence which is indicated
by our tables.
From Tables LXIV and LXVII ** we note that satisfactory evidence
of this influence upon the judgments of the particular character is lim-
ited to the first series of each division of the experiments, in which the
probable per cent for R cases by chance was 2.8%. Since in these sum-
maries of our aggregate results no good evidence of the influence was
shown in the second series of both divisions, in which the apparatus
and procedure, and even the greater number of the reagents, were iden-
tical with those of the first series, the query may arise as to whether the
extra-chance influence positively identified is in any way related to the
respect in which the first series differed from the second series: That
is, to the condition of guessing in which the reagent is not cognizant
of the particular symbols being presented, and is not expected to limit
his range of error in any degree to them. Now, as is shown elsewhere,
in the section on The Influence of Mental Habits Upon Judgment,**
the field of error is curiously limited in a reagent's guessing; the limita-
tion is involuntarily self-imposed. Since these limitations vary with the
individual, unless there is a common influence upon them, they have no
effect, in the long nm, upon the per cent of R cases.*"* Were they sub-
ject to the influence of subliminal impression they would contribute to
R cases, and in two ways : ( i ) by canceling error in the direct sublim-
inal pcrcepticm of the particular character; and (2) by limiting the
range of error, in some degree, to the symbols exerting the influence
and thus increasing the chances for R cases apart from either the im-
mediate subliminal perception or pure chance. This second form of
augmenting the R cases of chance, however, may also result, and per-
haps more effectively, from occasional satisfactory perception of the
** Supra, pp. 196 and 200.
*« Vide, infra, pp. 308 flF.
*^ For a consideration of the influence of mental habit in these experiments,
vidi, infra, pp. 308 ff.
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202 SUBLIMINAL IMPRESSION
symbols. Is it likely, then, that our extra-chance influence for R cases
is merely the eflFect, through suggestion, of perceptions (with their
twice-underscored records) upon the range of error in guessing by nar-
rowing the range somewhat in the more frequent guessing of the sym-
bols that had been perceived? If so, the per cents of R cases for the
individual reagents should form a sliding scale, with those who per-
ceived no symbols at the zero end and those who perceived the greatest
per cent of symbols at the other. Or, if the two arrays do not corre-
spond closely there should be a considerable correlation between them.
We find that the coefficient of correlaticm (r)* is
P£ = .o77,
which is a definite indication of relationship; but the results of eight
reagents (p, 17, 22, 25, 26, 27, j/, and 32), in Table LXII, at the
higher end of the arrays are responsible for almost the whole of this
value, since if they are disregarded the coefficient of correlation between
the per cent of R guesses and the per cent of perceptions becomes neg-
ligible in amount (r=.ii5 ± .109). Results in Table LXV are clear
of this criticism, as are the remaining results of Table LXII, which,
after the elimination of the eight reagents, yield in R guesses 6.88% ;
jr = 4.i, and jr/L = 2.08.
Moreover, with respect to the eight reagents, the coefficient of cor-
relation does not inform us whether the causal relation must be read
from one phenomenon to the other or whether both phenomena are to
some extent the effects of a common cause. It is possible that part of
the relationship is the result of the influence of subliminal impression
itself, since there is some evidence that unperceived letters presented by
a tachistoscope facilitate the perception of the same letters exhibited in
succeeding exposures.**
Another fact which mitigates this criticism may be pointed out.
The criticism takes for its point d'appui the difference between the de-
cisive x/L values of the first series and the indecisive correspond-
♦ /,= i — — -— — —. PE = .7063 • r = 2 sin\~p\ .
Vide, Brown: The Essentials of Mental Measurement. Cambridge, 191 1, pp. 49 ff.
**G)over: Formal Discipline from the Standpoint of Experimental Psychol-
ogy, Psychological Monographs, 19 16, No. 87:203. C/., Schumann: Die Erken-
nung von Buchstaben und Worten bei momentaren Beleuchtung, Bericht u. d. I
iCongress f. Exp. Psychol, 1904:36; and Pillsbury: A study in Apperception, Am.
Jr. Psychol., 1896-97, 8:355, 357, 359-
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EXPERIMENTS WITH WUNDTIAN TACHISTOSCOPE 203
ing values of the second series (Tables LXIV and LXVII). The first
series has two statistical advantages over the second series, which to-
gether are probably sufficient to account for the respective differences
between the values in question: (i) The greater number of experi-
ments decreases the chance-limit (L) ; (2) the probable per cent of R
cases by chance (^) is small enough relatively to require only about one-
eleventh of the number of experiments to yield a decisive x/L value for
any given per cent of extra-chance influence. The indecisiveness of the
values of the second series, therefore, cannot be taken as a positive in-
dication of the absence of extra-chance influence.**" As has already been
pointed out some of the individual values in the other tables (LXIII and
LXVI) are sufficiently high to overcome this handicap and thus to con-
stitute positive evidence of the presence of extra-chance influence.
A second source of error, one likely^ to be pressed by the experi-
mental psychologist, is the lack of a guarantee that all of the guesses are
valid guesses. Is it not probable that some of the records left without
underscore should have been underscored, since the reagents were not
experienced in the laboratory and could not be expected to be skilled in
avoiding occasional lapses of attention or memory, which naturally result
in a record of a guess for a perception or a partial perception, or in
avoiding momentary inexpertness in introspection? No doubt some of
the guesses are not valid guesses, but they are probably negligible in
number since the reagent was constantly having to discriminate between
his perceptions, his partial perceptions, and his "spontaneous guesses,"
and, granting him customary integrity, this process itself trains to expert-
ness in the capacity in question, and tends also to inhibit lapses of atten-
tion and memory in the critical moments of the experiment.
A consideration of the individual values in Tables LXII and LXV **
makes it clear (i) that for about half of the reagents there is little or
no extra-chance influence upon their guessing; (2) that for only about
a sixth of those who made the largest percentages of R guesses, the in-
fluence of perceived letters may have been considerable; this is verified
by the fact that with their elimination from the arrays, the coefficient
of correlation between per cent of R guesses and per cent of percep-
tions falls almost to its probable error; (3) that for about a third of
**^The indecisiveness of the results of the second series is removed if the
data are aggregated: Number of guesses =1114, R cases = 156 = 14.5%, x — 5%,
x/L^= 1.25. The deviation of R cases from probability exceeds the limit of chance
deviation, and the x value is 1.25 times that limit. There can be no doubt of an
extra-chance cause working for R cases.
** Supra, pp. 193 and 199.
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204 SUBLIMINAL IMPRESSION
the reagents, an extra-chance influence free from any considerable error
may be attributed to subliminal impression.
With respect to the R guesses of the general character of the stim-
ulus (letter for letter, digit for digit), the y values in Tables LXIV
and LXVII*' exceed the chance-limit in two of the four cases: In
Series II with the Wirthian tachistoscope, and in Series I with the
Wundtian tachistoscope. Both series of characters, however, present
characteristic differences between capitals and digits, as may be seen
from the facsimiles of the type,*^ which may be all that is necessary to
provide to indistinct perception a clue sufficiently eflFective to account
for the excess in R cases. The process, of course, could be involuntary.
Should this explanation not be adequate, there is still the possibility of
subliminal influence from these distinguishing characteristics, before re-
sort to subliminal classification of subliminally perceived particular sym-
bols becomes necessary.
^ Supra, pp. 196 and 200.
^T Shown on p. 191, footnote 38, and p. 198, footnote 40, respectively.
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EXPERIMENTS ON PERIPHERAL IMPRESSION 205
Division III. Peripheral Impression.
The experiments of this division ran pari passu with those of the
foregoing divisions, being performed with the same apparatus and gen-
eral procedure as were employed in Division 11. Their purpose was to
present stimuli to peripheral vision under such conditions as would pre-
clude ordinary complete or partial perception either in f oveal or in per-
ipheral vision, and thus to provide opportunity for evidence for the in-
fluence of subliminal impressions which would be free from the criticism
that introspective check, upon guessing, especially with naive reagents
such as ours, is unreliable for the purpose of discriminating between
guesses and partial perceptions.
On each card presented in the Wundtian tachistoscope two charac-
ters were typed in Elite type by a Remington Standard No. 7 T3rpe-
writer: a capital on the lower right comer; a digit on the upper left
comer. The symbols were the same as were used in Division II:
BHKUZ2457 9.* The reagent was required in each experi-
ment to record the capital and to put down with the record any digit
that should come to his mind. He was warned not to use any method
in his guessing of digits. In Section I he usually did not know a digit
was being presented with the letter. In Section II he did know that a
digit was being presented, and he usually confined his guesses to the five
digits. Conditions of perception were sufficiently difiicult to demand ef-
fort, and accurate judgment of the capital remained the principal task
of the reagent.
The position of the reagent was i meter from the card, the visual
angle of the character at that distance was 8.6', and the time of exposure
was .085 seconds — less than the fixation reaction-time of the eye. Only
one exposure was allowed in an experiment.
These conditions guaranteed a subliminal impression to peripheral
vision, since the visual angle subtended by the distance between the two
characters was 8® (in Series I of each Section), at which distance from
the line of sight in peripheral vision a character to be cognized must
subtend a visual angle of 3® 46',** — 26 times the vertical diameter of
our digit, — ^and two strokes can be distinguished from one stroke when
the distance between them is 5' 46",^* which is about 67% of the angle
subtended by our digit.
* A facsimile of the characters is shown on page 198, footnote 40.
^•Volkmann: Handworterbuch der Physiologic, 1846, iii, i, 334.
*• Hueck : MUller^s Archiv, 1840, p. 93.
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206 SUBLIMINAL IMPRESSION
In order to come closer to the limen of perception the digit for
some series was brought closer to the capital : Series II, 6° ; Series III,
4° ; and Series IV, 2°.
In all series a fixation point on the falling screen directed the focus
of the reagent's eyes upon the position of the capital.
Results.
Section I, Table LXVIII gives the data obtained under the condi-
tions that the reagent did not know the particular digits which were be-
ing displayed with the capital, usually did not know a digit was being dis-
played at all, and the distance of the digit from the line of sight was 8^ ;
the theoretical probability for R cases was io%. The reagent, the ntun-
ber of experiments, the number of capitals correctly recorded, the ntun-
ber and per cent of digits correctly guessed, the revised chance (p^) as
determined by the restriction in the range of error which the mental
habit of the reagent imposed upon his guessing, and the deviation of
% R from pi, are the respective rubrics .
Out of 2625 records of capitals, 2364 (90%) were rig^t, and these
alone are accepted as valid for our purpose. Guesses on the digits were
right 365 times, making R cases 1544%. Accepting the probable per
cent for R cases (10%) as a basis for calculating jr (the value of extra-
chance influence), we get
x + pii — x) =.1544
X -\- .1 — .IX = .IS44
jr — .1^ = .1544 — I = .0544
.gjr = .0544
X = .0604 = 6.04%
L = 2.62% y- = 2.3
Since x is 2.3 times the limit of chance, the evidence for extra-
chance influence is positive and satisfactory. Suspecting, however, that
the relatively large per cents of R cases contributed by Reagents ^3 and
^7 may be responsible alone for the excess over the limit of chance vari-
ation, we disregard them and calculate our values again, finding
jr = 4ii
X
The evidence is unchanged and there appears no good reason for ex-
cluding the two records.
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EXPERIMENTS ON PERIPHERAL IMPRESSION 207
1914-15
I915-16
TABLE LXVIII.
Peripheral
Vision.
Sec. I. Scries I. Visual Angle 8^
^= 10%.
Reagent
Experiments Letter R
Digit R
%R
^
%R'P^
3
100
91
9
9.5
10.0
-0.5
4
TOO
97
11
"^
ii.i
+0.2
5
99
61
16
26.2
10.0
+16.2
6
97
71
14
19.7
II.I
+8.6
7
100
82
12
14.6
II.I
+3.5
8
100
80
9
"3
114
-0.1
9
99
86
10
11.6
10.0
+1.6
10
100
96
II
"5
II.I
+04
II
TOO
100
14
14.0
lO.O
+4.0
12
100
98
II
1 1.2
10.0
+IJ2
13
TOO
TOO
IS
ISO
II.I
+3.9
14
100
99
10
10. 1
10.0
■K>.I
15
100
93
17
18.3
II.I
+7^
16
100
100
14
14.0
II.I
+2.9
n
100
8S
14
16.S
II.I
+5.4
18
100
95
17
17.9
II.I
4^.8
19
200
189
21
II. I
10.6
+O.S
20
100
97
12
124
II.I
+1.3
21
100
94
II
11.7
8.9
42.8
22
100
98
12
12.2
lO.O
+2.2
^3
100
98
36
2fi'1
II.I
+25.6
24
100
44'
5
11.4
(^•1
+4.7
25
100
96
15
15.6
12.5
+3.1
26
100
93
14
15.0
II.I
+3.9
27
100
98
32
32.6
13.3
+19.3
28
tals ....
30
— 2625
23
2364
90
3
15.44
13.0
II.I
+1.9
The extra-chance influence might result from common mental habits
in guessing, such as by narrowing the range of error would increase the
chances for R cases. Upon examination of tabulations of digits guessed,
it is found that but 7 reagents out of the 26 were free from those self-
imposed limitations. Usually they neglected to guess 0 or /, or both,
which would increase the chance for R cases from i : 10 to i : 9, or i : 8 ;
but sometimes an intermediate digit was ignored and occasionally it was
one of the digits being displayed. For each reagent, then, his chance
for R cases, as affected by his mental habit, was found, and is g^ven
under p^ in the table above. If we segregate the data and calculate x
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Experiments
Pi
^n
1130
II. I
1254
633
lao
63.3
189
10.6
20.0
98
13^
13.0
96
12.5
12.0
94
8.9
a4
80
114
9.1
44
6.7
2.9
208 SUBLIMINAL IMPRESSION
on the basis of the revised values we get the following table, in which
p^n is the probable number of R cases expected from the chance given
under p^ :
TABLE LXIX,
Mental Habit Eliminated.
190
82
21
32
15
II
9
S
2364 254.1 365
Per cent 10.75 15.44
Difference +4.69
^ + .1075 — .1075^ = .1544
^— .1075^ = .1544 — .1075 = .0469
.8925^ == .0469
X = .05255 = 5.25%
L = 2.62% X _^^
The aggregate of the R cases expected in the 2364 experiments be-
comes 10.75% instead of 10% ; the difference is real but slight, and x
is still twice the chance-limit. The extra-chance influence, after the ef-
fect of mental habit is eliminated, seems to be due alone to the sublim-
inal impression of the digit made upon the peripheral retina. But it is
not equally eflFective with all of the reagents. From the last column in
Table LXVIII we get the following distribution of gross values of extra-
chance influence (%R-^i) :
-0.S
+1.9
+4.7
-0.1
4«J
+54
-0.1
-h3.8
+65
+0.2
+2.9
+7J
•KM
+31
+a6
+as
+3.S
+i6j
+IJ
+3-9
+19.3
+IJ
+3-9
+25^
+1.6
+4.0
Since the chance-limit for the distribution is about 2.6, we may infer
that the subliminal impression was effective in 15 of the 26 cases.
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EXPERIMENTS ON PERIPHERAL IMPRESSION 209
The results of the further series, given for the purpose of learning
whether the extra-chance influence becomes greater as the visual angle
between digit and letter is decreased toward the limen of peripheral
vision, are summarized in the following table :
TABLE LXX.
Summary of Section I. ^ =» io%.
Scries I II III IV
Visual angle 8' 6* 4* a*
Number of reagents 36 15 14 14
Number of experiments 2625 760 410 280
Letter R 2364 721 403 276
% Digit R 1544 12.07 12.65 21.76
p^ 10.75 10.54 10.81 12.36
X , 5.25 1.71 2.03 10.7
x/L 2.02 0.36 0.32 1.27
These reagents, it must be recalled, did not know what digits were
being presented, and, owing to mental habits, variously restricted their
range of error in guessing ; this source of error has been removed from
their results in the above table. Revised chance (p^) always exceeded
theoretical p somewhat, and in Series IV considerably. The x value
falls heavily in Series II, but gradually increases in the succeeding series
until it becomes (in Series IV) 1.27 times the chance-limit, owing
largely, no doubt, to direct peripheral perception. The drop was unex-
pected, but seems to be due to a strong counter-tendency which the sub-
liminal impression had overcome. Tabulation of the digits guessed
shows that associations were formed between letter and digit, sometimes
strong enough to persist involuntarily in the reagent's guessing for a
considerable time. In fact, since subliminal impressions must have been
to some extent responsible for these associations, the longer the reagent
was kept guessing, under the same conditions, the more firm would the
associations become by reason of continued subUminal reinforcement;
and, apart from reinforcement, the process of recording the associated
symbols together would tend by the force of habit to make the associa-
tions firmer. Now, in each Section, the reagents who took the succes-
sive series of experiments were the same reagents, and they took the
series in their consecutive order. But for each succeeding series a
fresh set of cards, with a rearranged distribution of the digits over the
capitals, was provided, and continued associations, in so far as they were
the result of subliminal impression, would result in 100% wrong guesses.
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210 SUBLIMINAL IMPRESSION
Their influence would have to be more than overcome, for R cases to ex-
ceed chance, by the subliminal influence of the newly distributed digits.
The amount of decrease in the x value, in Series II, mig^t then be taken
as a rough measure of the influence of persisting associations.
Although some of the x values (in Series II and III) are not great-
er than their associated chance-limits, probably owing wholly to the lack
of a suflicient number of experiments to reduce the chance-limit below
them, they indicate g^dation of influence with successive decreases in
the visual angle between the dig^t and the line of vision. That the gra-
dation indicates . merely decrease in the counter-influence is unlikely,
since the series II, III, and IV were taken in the same sitting and the
number of experiments in each was scarcely enough, except through the
influence of subliminal impression, to break up the persisting associa-
tions. At any rate, the tabulations above referred to show that some of
the associations persisted to the end.
With respect to the x values of the last two series (III and IV),
it may be fairly questioned whether they are free from direct peripheral
perception. The following is testimony from the reagents' introspec-
tions:
Reagent /6: Saw no numbers or spots.
Reagent /^ : Did not know there were any digits on cards ; did not see spots.
Reagent /p: Without knowledge of digits or spots throughout
Reagent 21 : Did not know a digit was shown.
Reagent 26: Knew digit was on card, but did not know which digits; did
not know they grew closer in Series II-IV.
Reagent ^: Did not see any digits or spots, but learned that digits were on
cards, somewhere about half way through Series I.
Reagent 20: Knew digits were there but did not know what ones. But after
first few series did not notice the dark spot in comer [of card] ; did not know
that in Series II-IV the dark spot moved closer.
Definite report is available from only about half of the reagents,
but no reagents made a greater number of R cases in the respective
series than some of the reagents quoted above. With respect to the vis-
ibility of the digit in Series III and IV, we shall have to rely upon the
results of the reagents in Section II who knew that they were there and
tried to see them. It is possible that direct perception played some part
in the ;r value (10.7%) of Series IV, but, as implied above, the advan-
tage is not distinguishable in amount from the effect of subliminal im-
pression on the guessing of the reagents who perceived no digits.
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EXPERIMENTS ON PERIPHERAL IMPRESSION 211
Section 11. In Section II, although there were not as many expetri-
ments carried out as would be necessary to acquire scientific proof of
the influence of subliminal impression, there is good support for Section
I in indicating a gradation of influence as the digit approached foveal
vision. The data are summarized in the following table :
TABLE LXXI.
Summary of Section II. p = 20%.
Scries I II III IV.
Visual angle 8** 6'' 4* 2'.
Number of reagents 9 9 9 '^
Number of experiments 270 270 180 200
Number of Letter R 240 261 17S ^9S
% Digit R 21.7 24.2 28.0 47^
X 2.13 5.25 10.0 34.0
x/L 0.20 0.50 0.70 2J80
The extra-chance influence (jr) in the last series (IV) is 2.8 times
the chance-limit; valid peripheral perception having played a gjreater
part than in the preceding Section, since these reagents knew not only
what digits were displayed, but where they were displayed, and directed
their attention accordingly. Since the extra-chance influence was not
more than 34%, the conditions of perception were still below the con-
ventional limen (50%) of perception. This fact, in coimection with the
indications in the last two tables, of a gradation of influence correspond-
ing inversely to the change in angular distance between digit and line
of vision, emphasizes the conclusiveness of the results shown in Table
LXVIII, in their demonstration of the influence of subliminal im-
pression.
Introspective report of the reagents who knew where the digits
were and endeavored to see them, supports the assumption that the 8^
peripheral impression was safely beyond the limits of peripheral per-
ception :
Reagent 39: Saw the spot in Series IV (2°) but am not sure of any [guesses
of] digits. (R cases = 45%).
Reagent J7: Saw digits in Scries IV only. (R = 3S%).
Reagent j^: Could see digit occasionally in Series III (4*) (R = iS%),
and more often in Series IV (2*) (R = 45%).
Reagent 33: Perceived digits [spots] in latter part of Series III (4*), but I
could not tell what they were; could tell only that they were there. (R= 15%;
in Series IV, R = 2S%).
Reagent 30: In first experiment of Series IV saw both the B and the 4
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212 SUBLIMINAL IMPRESSION
(R = 8S%; in Scries III (4*), R-«SO%; in Scries II {6*), 33%; in I (B*).
17% — chance in alLao%).
Reagent 31 : Was able to see most of the digits in Series IV (2*) (R =» 85% ;
in Series III (4*), R = 3S%).
Reagent 35: In Scries III and IV I could see that the digits were in a dif-
ferent spot, that thty were coming nearer to the letter; I could see them but I
eould not make them out I thought I saw a digit once in the last series (TV,
J*. R = 30%).
Hence, tinder the conditions of full knowledge of the position of
the digit and an inclination to see it if possible, some reagents can occa-
sionally see the digit in Series IV (angular distance 2**) and rarely in
Series III (angular distance 4**). The values of x in the last table may,
consequently, be inferred to be constituted largely of the influence of
subliminal impression. The table supports the deduction above concern-
ing the counter-influence of associations, since, owing to the smaller
ntmiber of experiments (30) made by a single reagent in Series I, there
is no drop in the jr value of Series II, as was the case in Section I,
where the reagent made 100 experiments in Series I.
Before leaving this division of our investigation, two special inci-
dents connected with it should perhaps be reported.
(i) It was customary for two students to work together, one fill-
ing the office of experimenter, the other that of reagent. Thus the first
reagent could be kept free from knowledge about the digit, and his re-
sults contributed to Section I ; the second reagent had acted as experi-
menter, knew about the digits, and confined his guesses to the five digits
presented ; but since a new set of cards was used for him with a new dis-
tribution of digits over the capitals, he was instructed to free himself
from any associations he had made during his performance as experi-
menter. His results contributed to Section II. One second reagent,
however, through error was given the same set of cards in her first
series that she had handled as experimenter, and guessing, being con-
trolled by associations she must have made, resulted in 28 R cases out
of 29 experiments in which the letter was correctly recorded. Before
learning of the results, she wrote the following introspection: "I knew
that with every letter there was a digit and that each letter had the same
digit every time, but I did not know what the digit was for each letter."
Three explanations offer themselves : ( i ) She had unconsciously formed
the associations while handling the cards as experimenter; (2) she was
extremely susceptible to the subliminal influence and formed the asso-
ciations immediately upon the presentation of the cards to her as re-
agent; or (3) her introspection is unreliable. Since she seemed to fully
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EXPERIMENTS ON PERIPHERAL IMPRESSION 213
realize the responsibility of assisting in a research die results of which
were expected to be published, and since her associations persisted in
succeeding series in opposition to subliminal impressions of different
digits, the first explanation seems the most satisfactory, and, if true, im-
plies a remarkable performance in unconscious association. Her re-
sults, of course, were not used in the tables.*^
(2) Reagent 23 had been found to be a fairly ready crystal-gazer,
and he was provided with a glass paper-weight, topped with a spheroidal
knob about 3.5 cm. in diameter, into which he looked for his digits, thus
dispensing with direct guessing. He was not to influence the digit in
any way, but to record the digit that appeared. His results were higher
in R cases than the average, as may be seen, for Series I, from Table
LXVIII ;•* per cents of R cases in Series II-IV being 10.3, 27.6, and
70.6 respectively. G)nceming the process, he said that part of the letter,
always projected into the crystal normal size, suggested the form of the
digit, which came immediately and appeared objective and definite. But
since the digits recorded with the letters changed freely from series to
series, die suggestion was evidently not provided by, or confined to, the
form of the exhibited capital. The crystal, apparently, served as a de-
vice for converting the subliminal impressions into hallucinatory per-
ceptions.
*^The reagent has read this paragraph in the manuscript and affirms that it
should not be crossed out; that the inference concerning the "unconscious asso-
ciation" must be correct
»i Supra, p. 207.
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214 SUBLIMINAL IMPRESSION
Division IV. Miscellaneous Series.
The miscellaneous series of experiments reported in Division IV
are to be regarded as supplementary to those reported in the foregoing
divisions. Although they are fewer in number, were performed under
less rigorous experimental control, and, consequently, are of a lower
order of proof for the influence of subliminal impression upon judg-
ment, they are in some cases sufficiently positive to warrant their rec-
ord ; and their inclusion in our report is essential to the ideal of report-
ing all the facts, a departure from which would expose the report to the
criticism that only selected results were displayed.
The stimuli presented and the method of experiment were suggested
by work reported in psychical research literature. The following tabu-
lation will show in outline the nature and number of the experiments in
each of the four sections :
o •.,.., T . ^ Number of
Subliminal Impression from Reagents Experiments
§ I. Corneal reflections of playing-cards 2 400
f II. Playing-cards viewed at a distance 7 900
ff III. Whispering of the stimulus —
1. Whispering of letters and digits 4 800
2. 1st Series. Whispering of playing-cards 2 200
2d " " " " " 2 400
3. Whispering of numbers i 60
f IV. Involuntary signs (number-guessing) i 60
Totals 19 2820
§ I. SUBLIMINAL IMPRESSIONS FROM CORNEAL REFLECTIONS.
Reflections from the cornea of the eye, it is often said,** may play
an important role in feats of mind-reading and even in experiments in
thought-transference when the percipient faces the agent. They are
definite, minute, fleeting, elusive; possible stimuli for testing the influ-
ence of subliminal impression. Consequently two students took turns in
acting as experimenter and reagent, performing two sets of 100 experi-
ments each in card-guessing. Conditions were made favorable for see-
ing the reflection. The experimenter sat with his back to the light (his
right eye in shadow), and when he drew a card he held it up about four
or five inches from his face and slightly to the right side, in good light
**Vide, Bergson: Retme PhUosophique, 1886, 22:531.
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EXPERIMENTS WITH CORNEAL REFLECTION
215
The reagent watched for the corneal reflection at a distance of about
two feet Judgment was given separately upon color, number, and suit,
and perceptions were underscored; guesses were left without under-
score. The conditions of perception may be seen from the following
table:
TABLE LXXII.
Underscored Records.
Color Ntunber Suit
Set Total R Total R Total R Experimento
I 50 48 91 81 6 4 too
n 100 99 45 43 7 7 100
III 9B 95 50 46 15 13 too
IV 9 8 95 76 o o 100
It is seen that for one reagent (Sets I and IV) the number of
spots, and for the other (Sets II and III) the color, is the clearest fea-
ture of the reflected image ; suit is particularly difficult to determine.
The success of the guesses is shown in the following table :
TABLE LXXIII.
Corneal Reflection. Guesses.
Color
Number
Suit
S«t
No.
R
%R
No.
R
%R
No.
R
*R
I
SO
41
80
9
2
22
94
57
61
II
55
30
55
93
SO
54
III
2
I
, ,
SO
26
53
85
40
47
IV
91
79
87
5
2
••
100
56
56
Totak
143
121
119
60
372
203
%
84.6
50.S
54.6
P%
SO
10
40.8
Der.
+34-6
+40.S
+13.8
The deviations are sufficiently large to make the presence of an ex-
tra-chance influence certain. On number, however, it is certainly aug-
mented by reflections of spots of such a character that they afforded a
basis for approximation, and chance would not be merely 10% ; nor is
there any way of estimating it. And chance on suit is estimated on the
basis of 257 underscores for color. Of course, when the color is known
p for suit is 50% ; but if color is not known it is 25%.
. (-50+257) + (-as X 143) _^)
^^ 400 ^
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216
SUBLIMINAL IMPRESSION
Since the suit is the safest stimulus for testing for the influence of
subliminal impression, it merits more thorough consideration. A retab-
ulation gives the following table :
TABLE LXXIV.
Guesses
on Suit
(Mot Underscored
Color Not Underscored
Set
No.
R
%R
P
No.
R
%R p
I
47
37
57
50
47
30
64 35
n
93
SO
53.7
SO
III
83
40
48
SO
IV
9
5
55.5
SO
91
SI
66 25
Totals
asa
123
*
138
81
%
52.S
sa;
P
so
as
Dev.
+2.S
+33.7
jr
s%
45%
»/L
0.36
2.9
When the corneal reflection was clear enough for the color to be
perceived, the deviaticMi of R cases from the probable per cent on suit
(+2.5%) is not large enough to demand attention; the corresponding
X value being only 5%, which is but 36% of the chance-limit.
When the reflection, however, was not clear enough for the color to
be perceived, and the probable per cent of R cases due to chance was
25%, the deviation of R cases is large and significant (+33.7) I the cor-
responding X value being 2.9 times the chance-limit, which for so short
a series is very large.
We have, then, two significant extra-chance values: 84.6% on
color (Table LXXIII), and 58.7% on suit (Table LXXIV); the x
value for the former is 68.2%, and is 4.06 times the chance-limit. Both
values are the results of the work of but one of the reagents (Sets I and
IV). There is no satisfactory way to determine how much error, ow-
ing, say, to inexpert introspection in underscoring, is included in these
values. But in the light of the results with the peripheral digit guess-
ing, it would be not unreasonable to accept these values as indicative of
considerable subliminal influence from the corneal reflection of spots on
playing-cards.
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EXPERIMENTS WITH PLAYING-CABDS 217
§ II. SUBLIMINAL IMPRESSIONS OF PLAYING-CARDS AT A DISTANCE.
Both Sidis and Stroh, Shaw, and Washburn"* used traced or
printed characters (letters, or letters and digits) for stimuli, and made
the impression sublinunal by placing the stimulus so far away f ronfi the
reagent that it could not be perceived. The uniformity of spots in a
pack of playing-cards (court cards eliminated) suggested their uSe in
a similar way. Especially, the forms of the spots (suit), which in the
experiments with corneal reflection proved to be excellent stimuli, were
expected to provide subliminal impressions the influence of which could
be decisively demonstrated.
Consequently, 900 experiments were carried out with seven re-
agents. Each characteristic of the stimulus, Color, Number of spots,
and Suit, was judged separately ; and if perceived the record was under-
scored. A linen-finish card** with very clear, well-printed spots was
used. Reagents I-IV, VI, and VII were stationed 32 meters from the
card; Reagents // and V, 25 meters; and Reagent ///, 10 meters. The
following table gives the gross results :
TABLE LXXV.
Guessing of Cards at a Distance.
Underscored
t
Not Underscored
r
Reagent Color
Number
Sui
Color
Number
Suit
No.
R
No.
R
No.
R
No.
R
No.
R
No.
R
/
100
99
96
79
97
66
0
0
4
0
3
I
2
54
49
2
I
4
2
46
33
98
35
96
39
3
54
53
53
51
0
0
46
45
47
38
100
38
^
94
89
88
0
0
6
6
II
8
100
67
88
88
89
87
0
0
4
3
3
0
92
54
4
74
62
22
17
0
0
26
22
78
46
lOp
47
5
28
23
I
I
I
I
72
45
99
12
99
33
6
67
59
49
49
0
0
33
24
51
d^
100
43
7
99
95
80
64
39
19
I
0
20
14
71
31
658
622
481
437
131
88
234
178
411
185
761
353
%R
94.5
908
67.2
76.0
45.0
46u|
P
50
10
4M
Dev.
+16
+35
+5.0
X
32
as
x/L
2.3
1.26
»« Vide, pp. 177 ff., and 186 ff., supra.
*^ Aristocrat, linen finish, Kalamazoo Playing Card Company.
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218 SUBLIMINAL IMPRESSION
The left half of the table indicates, by the amount of underscoring,
and the accuracy of the underscored records, the general conditions of
perception. The remaining part of the table gives the guesses, upon
which the amount of influence of subliminal impression must be deter-
mined. The deviations from the probable per cent of R cases are:
Color +i6. Number +35, Suit +5. And since Number may be approxi-
mated by the apparent fullness of the card or by the pattern of the spots,
the corresponding deviation must be disregarded. On G)lor the amount
of extra-chance influence (x) is 32%, which is 2.3 times the chance-
limit; on Suit it is 8.5%, 1.28 times the chance-limit, p for Suit, how-
ever, was calculated,"* and our knowledge would be more satisfactory
if the guesses on the Suit were segregated and the respective deviations
from the two probabilities were used separately for determining x
values. The segregated data are shown in
TABLE LXXVI.
Guesses
on Suit
Color Underscored
Color Not Underscored
Reagent
No.
R
%R
Na
R
%R
I
44
24
54.5
47
15
31.9
3
(54
19
35^)
6
5
88
64
73.6
6
3
84
SI
60.7
4
3
4
59
33
55.9
V
II
407
5
aa
la
54.5
73
20
374
6
57
31
544
33
12
364
7
68
31
45.6
2.
0
Total
476
365
198
69
%
557
38.8
A
SO
25
Dev.
+57
+13.8
s
114
184
*/L
1.17
142
Or Total
423
346
252
88
%
58.3
35
P
50
25
Dev.
■^«•3
+10
X
16.6
13.3
x/L
1.6
(334 X JS) + (622 X .50)
A\A. = Al^^o
. When C
1.15
!!olor was
M » =
under-
892
scored, and wrong, the chance for R cases on Suit is o ; when right, 50% ; when
unknown^ 25%.
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EXPERIMENTS WITH WHISPERING 219
The X values arc positive and they exceed their respective chance-
limits, indicating certainly an extra-chance influence upon the guessing
of the Suit both when the color was known and when it was unknown.
The 35.2% R, of Reagent /// under "Color Underscored," really be-
longs to the other side of the table, since the reagent, a Japanese, ex-
plained that he did not know what suits were black and what red. If
it is transferred, the respective x values become i6.6% and 13.3% ; x/L,
1.6 and 1. 15; no essential change being made in the evidence for the
influence of the subliminal impression of distant card-spots upon the
guessing of Suit. Of course, this evidence stands upon the trustworthi-
ness of the underscoring; but Table LXXV indicates that the under-
scoring occurred cmi records that must have been much below clear per-
ception, only 67.2% of the underscored records on Suit being right.
The spot, therefore, seems quite satisfactory as a stimulus to be made
sublinunal by distance. There is a source of error, however, arising
from the conventional spot patterns of the cards which enables the re-
agent to infer the Suit of a fairly full card : a nine-spot or ten-spot of
Hearts is a redder card than the corresponding Diamonds; "Diamonds
look larger than Hearts and, if placed one above another, seem more con-
nected at the distance of 32 meters." "Clubs look rounder than Spades,
and a number of them gives a somewhat blurred effect not given by
Spades," says Reagent VI ; but Reagent VII said, "As to suit, this was
a guess most of the time, Spades appeared to be a larger blur than
Clubs; Hearts and Diamonds were a quandary; could distinguish
neither correctly and had no basis to start a guess on. Sometimes I
recognized a strcxiger blur and called that Hearts, as a card of Hearts
is covered with a little more red than a card of Diamonds."
This error would seem to be largely limited to the full cards seen
well enough to determine the color, and, consequently, would affect but
part of Table LXXVI. K the color of the blur could not be dis-
tinguished, it is improbable that the actual differences in the size of the
spots would rise above the threshold of discrimination.
§ III. THE WHISPERING OF THE STIMULUS.
An explanation offered in the early days for the successful experi-
ments in Thought-Trans ference was the unconscious perception of in-
voluntary whispering,"* and recent experiments"^ have strongly sug-
** Vide, Hansen and Lehmann, op. ciL
•^ Vide, Stroh, Shaw, and Washburn, op. cit.
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220 SUBLIMINAL IMPRESSION
gested that the whispering of letters increases R cases in guessing even
though the reagent hears no sound.
In order to test further the hypothesis that subliminal auditory im-
pressions may influence judgment, the following experiments were
made. The stimuli were varied: whispered names of (a) letters and
digits, (b) playing-cards, and (c) numbers.
J. The WhUpering of Letters and Digits,
Four reagents, all men, made 800 experiments in recording from
whispers of letters or digits originating at a source 25 meters distant.
The same letters and digits and the same general method of procedure
were used as in the Tachistoscopic experiments. The whispering of
the character was not begun until after trial a maimer of whispering, as
to intensity and articulation, was found which was judged to be just
below the limen of perception.
As before, perceptions were underscored twice if the whispered let-
ter was perceived, once if the whispering helped the guess ; only spon-
taneous guesses were recorded without underscoring. In Series I each
reagent was in ignorance of what letters or digits were being presented
(chance = 2.8%) ; in Series II he limited his guesses to them (chance
= 10%).
TABLE LXXVII.
Guesses of Whispered Letters and Digits.
Series L p=2.S%.
Reagent
No. of
Percepti
ions
Inferences
Guesses
%K
Experiments
Total
R
Total
R
Total
R
/
100
9
4
a6
7
(^^
6
9^
2
100
6
5
55
39
39
7
18.0
3
100
2
2
6
I
92
4
4.3
4
100
7
0
93
4
4.3i
Tout
400
17
II
94
37
289
21
%
65
39.6
7.26
P
2.8
Dev.
+4^
X
4.6
x/L
1.12
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BXPERIMENTS WITH WHISPERING
221
TABLE LXXVII {ConHnued),
Series II.
^ = 10%
Reagent
No. of
Perceptions
Inferences
Guesses
%R
Experiments
Total
R
Total
R
Total
R
/
100
i6
II
40
M
44
4
9.1
i
100
12
10
54
29
34
5
14.7
3
100
3
3
97
12
12.4
4
100
100
13
12
Total
400
31
24
94
53
275
35
%
77
564
12
P
10
Dev.
+2
X
2.2
x/L
0.2P
The deviations for the respective series are +446% and +2% ; the
X values are 4.6 and 2.2 \ and the x/L values, 1.12 and 0.29. Conse-
quently, in Series I the x value, since it exceeds the limit of chance devi-
ation, portrays definitely an extra-chance cause operating for R guesses ;
but in Series II the corresponding value, being only 29% of the devia-
tion from the probable per cent which may be expected by chance, is
not determinative. Since all but one of the sets in the latter series, how-
ever, show a positive deviation from the probable number of R cases,
the X value of the series is probably not due to chance.
The decisive value for an extra-chance cause in Series I becomes
still more satisfactory as a determination of the effect of subliminal
auditory impressions upon judgment when it is recognized that the un-
derscoring was carried out to a level considerably below the threshold
of perception, only 65% of the perceptions being right, and 39.6% of
the inferences. The remaining records are thus pretty certain to be
spontaneous guesses, free from the error of inexpertness in intro-
spection.
Tabulation of the wrong guesses for the purpose of learning
whether they were more often right as to classification, than they should
be by chance (t. e, letter for letter, and digit for digit), yields only
chance deviations from the probable per cent. No subliminal classifica-
tion has taken place.
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222 SUBLIMINAL IMPRESSION
2. The Whispering of P laying-Cards.
Two series of experiments were carried out with the intention of
seeking the effect of slight whispering upon card-guessing. In Series I
two reagents performed loo experiments each under conditions analogous
to those of the thought-transference experiments described above.*^* The
chief variation in method was that when the dice cast odd the name of
the card was lightly whispered. In Series II all the cards drawn were
lightly whispered. Two reagents performed 200 experiments each. In
both series the reagent sat 32 meters distant from the experimenter, who
whispered the names of the cards (as, 5 of Hearts). The following
table shows the results :
TABLE LXXVIII.
Guesses of Whispered Cards. % Right
Series I.
Card Not Whispered Card Whispered
Reagent Card Color No. Suit Total Card Color No. Suit Total
/ 4 39 16 JO 49 3 39 8 18 51
2 4468 17 48 46513^653
Probability 2.5 50 10 25 3.5 50 10 35
Series II.
3
45
7
25
100
3
63
7
39
100
I
47
14
M
100
3
55
9
33
100
Probable % 3.5 SO 10 35
The deviations of R cases from the probable per cent in bodi series
are much too small to indicate any extra-chance influence upon the
whispering. In Series II, Suit, in the last set, seems to have some ad-
vantage; but to be decisive it should be 43% instead of 32%. The
whispering does not appear to have had any influence upon the guessing.
3. The Whispering of Numbers.
Remembering the success of the "Unwillkurliche Pflustem" of
•Ta Supra, pp. 48 ff .
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INVOLUNTARY SIGNALS 223
Hansen and Lehmann** when they conducted their guessing experi-
ments with the aid of large parabolic mirrors at the respective foci of
which the closed mouth of the experimenter and the attentive ear of the
reagent were placed, we designed, for demonstration purposes primar-
ily, a series of 60 experiments in which the student acted as experiment-
er and the writer as reagent. The numbers chosen for the experimenter
to whisper so lightly that no movement of the lips or throat, and no
sound, could be detected by an observer, were ^, 3, and 8. A short
pasteboard tube made communication between the left ear of the ex-
perimenter and the right ear of the reagent, slight sounds due to changes
in breathing were heard through the tube at the moment of "involtm-
tary" whispering, and R cases were 52%, 28% •• being due to the influ-
ence of the slight sounds.
§ IV. INVOLUNTARY SIGNALS
A short series of experiments designed to demonstrate the fact of
involuntary signals was carried out by two women students from one
of the writer's classes.
One of the students, who had a definite "number form," that is, a
spatial system over which the number-series was distributed, acted as
experimenter. The other, who was confidentially instructed in the es-
sentials of the "number form," acted as reagent and did the "guessing."
The three numbers (10, 20, 30) selected for the experimenter to "think"
lay in distinctly different locations in the scheme. Each student was pro-
vided with a ruled form containing 60 spaces. The experimenter closed
her eyes and thought of a number, which she recorded after the re-
agent had recorded a guess. The latter formed her guess after watch-
ing the movement of the cornea of the eye tmder the experimenter's
closed lids. Occasionally this movement betrayed the number thought
of by locating spatially its position in the "number-form." The reagent
was inexpert and skeptical of success; yet her R cases equaled 60%,
40% •• being due to the influence of the involuntary signs. Her skep-
ticism indicates that the assistance was mainly unconsciously used; that
is, that subliminal impressions of the involuntary signals possibly influ-
enced her judgments.
•• Vide, supra, p. 32.
»»x = .52 — /> (I— jr)=28%. x/L=i.i2.
•o^==.6o — ^(i — jr)=4o%. jr/L=i.&
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224 subliminal impression
Conclusion.
The influence of subliminal impressions, of capitals and digits pre-
sented by a tachistoscope to foveal vision, produced in spontaneous
guessing from 5% to 7% Right cases. That this effect is only about
25% of that found by Sidis and about 17% of that found by Stroh,
Shaw, and Washburn, may be owing to two radical departiu-es in the
method of experimentation: (i) The stimulus was rendered subliminal
by decreasing the time of exposure rather than by increasing the dis-
tance between stimulus and reagent; and (2) the reagent was required
to designate a class of records (inferences based upon partial percep-
tion) between perceptions and guesses, which proved to be a large class,
and which was excluded from consideration. The influence was opera-
tive upon only about 30% of the reagents ; and its effect was mainly to
cause a right guess of the particular character. There was some indi-
cation that it contributed to R cases in the guessing, with respect to the
general character of the stimulus (letter for letter, digit for digit),
since both styles of type that were used exhibited characteristic differ-
ences between capitals and digits. For this latter effect, it does not,
therefore, seem necessary to assume a subliminal perception of the par-
ticular characters,*^ or a subliminal elaboration or the classification of
particular characters.
That the effective subliminal impressions cannot be regarded merely
as sensations of sufficient intensity and clearness to be noticed in con-
sciousness but unnoticed by our reagents because of misdirection of at-
tention incident to inexpertness in introspection, is shown by the effect
of digits presented to peripheral vision (visual angle 8°) during an
interval less than the reaction-time of the eye. Normal perception is
impossible, yet the effect was to increase right guesses by about 5%.
The results of some of our experiments indicate that the tachisto-
scopic control of the stimulus may be less satisfactory than the distance
control for inciting the influence of subliminal impressions. Corneal
reflections of the spots on playing-cards, when too indefinite for the per-
ception of their color, exerted an extra-chance influence on R guesses of
45% ; and guessing on the same stimuli from a distance too great to
afford perception of their color, was influenced toward R cases to the
extent of 13%.
Subliminal influence of auditory stimuli consisting of whispered
letters and dig:its was found to the extent of about 5%, although similar
•1 Cf,, quotations from Sidis, pp. 182 ff., supra.
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CONCLUSION 225
whispering of the names of playing-cards produced no noticeable effect
upon the guesses of the few reagents tried.
In a short series of guessing in the presence of involuntary signak
(movements of the eye), when the extra-chance influence amounted to
40%, there was strcxig indication that the assistance of the involuntary
signals was largely unconsciously received.
Just how subliminal impressions are able to influence judgment
must remain a matter of conjecture. No doubt the neural processes set
up by the stimulus differ from their analogous processes subserving
conscious perception only in intensity, the essential difference between
their psychical concomitants being that the sensations accompan3ring the
former are not discovered and recognized by introspection. This lack
of recognition may result from two distinct mental conditions: (i)
Abstraction upon exclusive content; as, to make use of a literary mis-
cellany, Newton's astonishment, upon reaching home, at finding himself
wet, resulted from his state of mental abstraction during the homeward
journey in which his horse took a short cut and swam the mill-pond.
The sensations of temperature and touch were supra-liminal in intensity,
but they were disregarded, — a matter of the direction of the attention.
(a) Inability to directly recognize subliminal impressions. Just as there
are differences between sensations too small to be clearly recognized, as
between the "hefts" of the 102- and 103-gram weights, so there must be
sensations too obscure in consciousness to be clearly recognized, — a mat-
ter of "Weber's Law," or of the "Law of Relativity." The impressions
are "subliminal" in the sense that they fall below the conventional limen
of perception ; not that they fall below the absolute limen of conscious-
ness.
It is probable that both of these conditions obtained, perhaps un-
equally, in our experiments when the presentation was made to foveal
vision; but only the latter could have obtained when the presentation
was made to peripheral vision.
We have fotmd, therefore, in our investigation of the effect of sub-
liminal impression upon judgment, some experimental evidence of "a
fringe of perceptions, most often unconscious, but all ready to enter into
consciousness, and in fact entering in in certain exceptional cases or in
certain predisposed subjects" with which Professor Bergson insisted
" 'psychical research' could and should concern itself." •* And it must
•« Vide, quotation, p. 170, supra.
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226 SUBLIMINAL IMPRESSION
be regarded as more than probable that, as some investigators and critics
have suspected,** this sort of perception has played a role in the evidence
for telepathy gathered from thought-transference experimentation and
from the seance-room. Indeed, the argument offered, with specific ref-
erence to his own remarkable experiments in thought-transference, by
Professor Gilbert Murray, in his Presidential Address on The Fringe
of Consciousness (delivered in the Hall of The Royal Society of Medi-
cine, London, July 9, 1915, before the Society for Psychical Research),
goes further:
(i) The action of what we call telepathy is habitual in ordinary human in-
tercourse.
(2) In essence it consists in nothing more mysterious than the action on the
mind of sense-perceptions which are too faint to establish themselves, as sense-
perceptions, above the threshold of consciousness.**
Further investigation in this field may profitably look toward the
determination of the extent of the influence of subliminal impression
upon judgment (a) in normal subjects, when the stimuli are not re-
moved so far from the limen of normal perception, and when the stim-
uli are varied over the sense-modes, and (fe) in 'sensitive' or 'psychic'
subjects.
•» Vide, the abstracts from the literature at the beginning of this Part Cf,,
Thomas : Thought Transference, p. 28 ; Stout : Hibbert Jr., 2 : 62.
^Proceedings S.P.R,, 1916, 29:48.
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i PART m.
MENTAL HABIT
AND
INDUCTIVE PROBABILITY
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PART in.
MENTAL HABIT, AND INDUCTIVE PROBABILITY.
The two concepts, Mental Habit, and Inductive Probability, are so
often connected in the minds of students of psychical research ¥rith the
experimental investigation of thought-transference, as possible factors
of error and delusion, that it has been thought worth while to give spe-
cific attention to them ^ at this point; especially since they also have an
equally vital bearing upon our Experiments on Subliminal Impression.
In the first section of this Part we shall endeavor (i) to show, by
way of illustrations from the most diverse sources, how inevitably men-
tal habit influences judgment irrespective of the field in which judgment
is made; (2) to examine the bearing of this general fact upon the in-
vestigation of thought-transference; and (3) to determine the amount
of extra-chance influence which may reasonably be credited to this cause,
in such experiments in thought-transference as have been reported in the
literature, and in such experiments as we have performed on Subliminal
Impression.
In the second section of this Part we shall endeavor to show, also
by way of varied illustrations, that empirical chance events occur in con-
fonnance to the mathematical law of chances, and, consequently, that
the "Theory of Probability" and the statistical formulae derived from it
provide us with a means which cannot fail to resolve doubt and con-
troversy concerning the existence of the allied phenomena of thought-
transference, lucidity (clairvoyance), and communications from discar-
nate personalities who have the power of learning facts in our world.
In these endeavors the data of our experiments are brought under
tribute, and, it is hoped, some slight but positive contribution may be
made upon the general topics of both sections.
^Professor Titchener, as early as 1899, stated that in his opinion the next
step in thought-transference investigation should be "an exhaustive study of
number-habits." {Science, 1899, 9:787.)
229
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230 MENTAL HABIT
MENTAL HABIT.
THE INFLUENCE OF MENTAL HABIT UPON JUDGMENT.
The phenomena of subliminal influences upon judgment constitute
a fairly large class, only one genus of which is the influence from ordi-
nary sense impressions, which was subject to investigation in Part II,
arid since it is of interest to psychical research to explore thoroughly
the "sub-conscious" phenomena we have an additional incentive to notice
another important genus of subliminal influence, which has played a
role in the evaluation of the results of experiments on thought-transfer-
ence, and for which our data have furnished some evidence — the influ-
ence of mental habits upon judgment.
It has long been known that judgments are modified in such ways
as are not creditable to the person delivering them, and thus involun-
tarily, or in such ways as show systematic or constant biases where no
conscious motive can be conceived to operate; but only after general
interest in statistical matters had been developed in the sociological and
psychological fields did knowledge of the extent of this involuntary con-
trol of judgment, and of its nature, become definite. We now know that
mental habits pertain to numbers, letters, colors, time and space divi-
sions, and to almost everything about which a judgment can be made at
all, and that they are so prevalent that perhaps no considerable number
or class of judgments is free from them, whether the judgments are de-
livered by a reagent in a thought-transference experiment in a psycho-
logical laboratory, by a judge of the supreme court in sentencing a con-
victed prisoner, by a teacher who is estimating the scholastic merit of a
student in assigning him a grade-mark in a specific subject, by an as-
tronomer who is estimating the magnitude of a star, by a signal service
meteorologist in estimating the temperature or the amount of precipita-
tion, or by a psychologist who is estimating tenths of a vibration on a
kymograph time-record.
Let us examine some of the available statistical evidence of the in-
fluence of mental habit upon judgment.
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INFLUENCE OF MENTAL HABIT UPON JUDGMENT 231
Population by Age.
In the report of the Twelfth Census of the United States (1900)
we find the following statement concerning the 'TRound Niunber" ten-
dency that people have in reporting ages :
In every census of population . . . there is apparent a considerable concen-
tration on certain years of age, particularly on those that are multiples of 5 and
10, and in a somewhat less degree on the even years of age for persons less than
ao years old. This concentration is due to the well known tendency to state ages
in round numbers, especially in those cases where the person interrogated is not
possessed of positive knowledge concerning members of the household (relatives
and boarders) who are absent at the time of the enumerator's visit*
Inspection of Plate XIII,* which gives the distribution curve of the
population between the ages of i and 72 years, for the mainland of the
United States, according to the Twelfth Census, will verify the above
statement; and the rotmd-number and even-ntmiber preferences are
found to obtain for both male and female population. An interesting
verification of the reliability of the peaks of the curves as indicative of
preference, is seen in the modification of the curves in accordance with
motives that are well known : the excess of the number of women over
the number of men at the ages of 18 and 20, and the relative increase
in the number of women in the early twenties and the relative decrease
in the early thirties. Statistical expectation, of course, demands a rela-
tively smooth curve, where the numbers are as g^eat as are plotted in
the curve, since the real ages of the population must be fairly regularly
distributed, and but small and gradual changes in the relation of the two
curves.
Lest the reader suspect that the enumeration of the Twelfth Cen-
sus was not made with especial care, in order to decrease as much as
possible these well known sources of error, we quote the Chief Statis-
tician of the Thirteenth Census (1910) :
In 1900 both "date of birth" and "age at last birthday" were called for, one
as a check upon the accuracy of the other, and this double return may have re-
duced somewhat the margin of error. . . . The possible gain in accuracy from this
double return did not seem, however, to justify loading the population schedule —
already complicated — with an additional inquiry. It was, therefore, determined
to ask but one question . . . "Age at last birthday (before April 15, 1910)." *
•Vol. 2, pp. XXXV flF.
» Infra, p. 232.
^Report of the Thirteenth Census, vol i, p. 291.
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234 MENTAL HABIT
And Plate XIV,* which gives the distribution curves for the Thir-
teenth Census, shows a considerable exaggeration of the number prefer-
ences already pointed out. For example, although there are at any time
fewer men in the United States at the age of 30 than at the age of 29,
the Twelfth Census lists 170,961 more, and the Thirteenth Census
238,010 more; and although there are likewise certainly fewer young
women at any time at the age of 18 than at the age of 17, the Twelfth
Census lists 34,723 more, and the Thirteenth Census 92,899 more.
We may conclude, therefore, from these two sets of distribution
curves, (i) that there is a specific set of number preferences with re-
spect to age-estimation, which is shared by people of all ranks in life;
and (2) that those preferences are exaggerated when greater freedom
is allowed in giving estimated rather than true ages.
Considering the fact that the bulk of the census returns were gath-
ered from people in the lower and middle ranks of life, one might sur-
mise that these number preferences rest upon mental inertia; that to an
alert mind 29 is as likely an estimate as 30.
Now, I presume no class in the country possesses a higher intellec-
tual rank, or minds more keenly alert, than the judges of our courts.
If the judges show number preference in the terms for which they com-
mit convicted prisoners to the penitentiary, the surmise must be wrong.
It may fairly be expected that degrees in the gravity of crime will be
distributed in a regular fashion, would be represented by a smooth curve
over a time-scale, and that judges exercise care in graduating terms of
commitment, within the limits assigned by the law, to the gravity of the
crime.
Terms of Criminal Sentences.
From the Eleventh Census (1890), which provides the most com-
plete available data concerning crime, we learn that there were 63,653
prisoners serving term sentences in our prisons. The terms of commit-
ment, for an integral number of years, are shown in Plate XV. Curve
A shows the distribution of the terms for an integral number of years
from 5 to 25; Curve B, from 20-40; Curve C for fractional parts of a
year, given in addition to one or more years ; and Curve D for an in-
tegral number of months.
An examination of these curves shows that the terms of commitment
of our prisoners were determined in a marked degree by the judges*
preference for round numbers in years, and for quarters of years in
months.
• Supra, p. 233.
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INFLUENCE OF MENTAL HABIT UPON JUDGMENT
235
It has been suggested, in palliation of the judges' position, (i) that
the law provides for any given crime, lower and upper limits of possible
sentence between which the round numbers furnish natural and suffi-
ciently fine gradations ; and (2) that the judges are fully aware of their
frequent preference for the round numbers and do not feel under obli-
gations to use finer gradations.
With respect to the first point, in order to determine whether judges
often gave the limit, either upper or lower, and whether the limits as-
signed by the laws of the respective states for the various crimes were
MOO
9mr%
m A
iOOO
0
N
L
V-/
V .
Plate XV.— Terms of Criminal Sentence in the United States.
Eleventh Census (1890).
usually in round numbers, the census tables were again searched, with
the following results :
(a) Both minimum and maximiun sentences allowable ranged very
irregularly from less than a year to life, and preferences were shown
for I, 2, 3, 5, 7, 10, 14, and 20 years, and life, the stronger preference
above 4 years being the maximum sentence of 10 years.
At just one point does the preference in a limit depart markedly
from the preference in term of commitment: 14 years is preferred over
15 years in the former, while 15 is preferred over 14 in the latter;
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236
MENTAL HABIT
which would tend to impute an independent number-preference to the
judges.
(b) Assuming that if judges often gave a limiting sentence it would
probably be shown in granting the lower limit to women, a crucial case
was sought. There were 257 female prisoners committed in 26 respec-
tive states for g^and larceny. Plate XVI shows the curves of the mini-
mum and maximum sentences allowable, in the respective states, and of
Plate XVI.— Female Sentences for Grand Larceny.
Eleventh Census, 257 cases.
the terms of conmiitment. The latter is shifted above the minimum
sufficiently to show that the minimimi sentence was seldom given. At
one point, on 5 years, the commitment curve conforms to the maximum
curve : but those prisoners were sentenced in states in which the maxi-
mum sentence allowable was 7, 10, 14, or 15 years. Again, the commit-
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INFLUENCE OF MENTAL HABIT UPON JUDGMENT
237
ment for 5 years was determined by an independent preference for a
round number on the part of the judges.
(c) The tables were searched for single commitments for the re-
spective crimes in the respective states, and 58 cases were found. Plate
XVII shows pictorially the range of allowable sentence and the term of
• 1 ' * * * '
f t ' T T 1
0 nm 01^
' • f 'f •
— ' —
—
=
-
- —
—
■-- ■
Plate XVII.— Single Commitments. Eleventh Census.
The lines show the range of sentence permissible by law;
the vertical stroke shows the sentence prcmounced by the judge.
commitment, for each case. In five cases the minimtun sentence was
given; in five cases the maximum was given. Only about a sixth of
the sentences were determined by a limit assigned by law.
It is more than probable, therefore, that the preference for round
numbers shown in the distribution of terms of commitment has not been
imposed upon the judges by the limits of sentence assigned by law.
As to the round numbers furnishing sufficiently fine gradations, be-
tween the imposed limits, for an equitable graduation of term of com-
mitment to gravity of crime, it may be admitted, perhaps, that such
might be the case for sentences above 25 or 30 years; but it can
scarcely be admitted for sentences under 20 years. It would seem that
it must make a sensible difference to a prisoner whether he is sentenced
for 18 or for 20 years, and still more whether he is sentenced for 5 or
for 7 years. That such distinctions are recognized by judges is indicated
by the fact that they do make still finer ones, since, as the distribution
of commitments shows, every integral number of years between the
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238 MENTAL HABIT
round numbers has been pronounced in one or more cases up to 43, and
in more than four cases up to 37 ; and not only so, but up to 22 years
fractional parts of a year have been added to each of the integral niun-
bers, in order to- make the gradations finer, as the two samples in the
following table illustrate:
Number of Sentences Years Months
2
19
4
2
19
5
6
19
6
I
19
ID
2
19
II
I
9
2
8
9
3
4
9
4
3
9
5
32
9
6
5
9
8
6
9
9
9
9
10
3
9
II
Perhaps the evidence in the distribution of terms of commitment is
itself sufficient to indicate that gradations in round numbers below 20
years are recognized by the judges to be too coarse to meet the ends of
justice; but if so, the extraordinary preference for round numbers ex-
hibited by judges must be in part if not largely an involuntary prefer-
ence,— ^the subliminal influence of a mental habit upon judgment. This
suggestion gathers force from the fact that others whose sense of jus-
tice has been less carefully cultivated than that of judges recognize in
the situation something reprehensible to the bench.
Hewes, after discussing the distribution of criminal sentences, says :
Of course no man, even including the judges themselves who pronounce
sentences, would undertake to claim that criminality is graduated so irregularly
as are the terms of sentence. If, then, the calmest, the best-educated judgments
deviate so far, in suiting penalty to guilt, what wonder if ordinary judgment in
less serious affairs of communities makes many mistakes.^
Concerning criminal sentences in England, which are given in weeks
up to II, in months from 3 to 35, and in years from 3 on, and which
exhibit similar number preferences for 2, 5, and 9 weeks, 3, 6, 9, 12, 18,
and 24 months, and 5, 7, and 10 years. Sir Francis Galton, after study-
•F. W. Hewes: The influence of number in criminal sentences. Harper^s
Weekly, 1896, 40:254.
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INFLUENCE OF MENTAL HABIT UPON JUDGMENT
239
ing the irregular distribution of 54,670 sentences (43»300 in wecks^
10,540 in months, and 830 in years), said:
It would have been expected that the various terms of imprisonment awarded
by judges should ^1 into a continuous series.
Such, however, is not the case. ... It is impossible to believe that a judicial
system acts fairly, which, when it allots only 20 sentences to 6 years imprison-
ment, allots as many as 240 to 5 years, as few as 60 to 4 years, and as many
as 360 to 3 years. Or that, while there are 20 sentences to 19 months, there should
be 300 to 18, none to 17, 30 to 16, and 150 to 15. . . . Runs of figures like these
testify to some powerful cause of disturbance which interferes with the orderly
distribution of punishment in conformity with penal deserts.
On examining the diagram [Plate XVIII] we are struck with the apparent
MonVis J 4 S ^ J 9 f M f/ /% ft /If iS J^ ti It ff to ti r> '»$
Plate XVIII. — Terms of Criminal Sentence in England.
(FrcMn data published by Galton.)
facility of drawing a smooth curve, that shall cut off as much of the hill-tops of
the irregular curve as will fill their adjacent valleys. . . . The smoothed curve
may therefore be accepted as an approximate rendering of the general drift of
the intenticms of the judges as a whole, and shows that the sentences passed by
them severally ought to be made more appropriate to the penal deserts of the
prisoners than they are at present^
^ Galton : Terms of imprisonment Nature, Jtme ao, 1895, PP. 174-6.
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240 MENTAL HABIT
It is consequently unlikely that judges, although they doubtless vary
considerably in this respect, are conscious of, and acquiesce in, the large
control of their judgments by the round-number mental habit. But we
shall not rest the case for ''unconscious'' influence of mental habit upon
this evidence alone.
If there is any sphere in which such an influence works uncon-
sciously, it must be in our educational institutions where conscientious
teachers give their students final grades in their respective subjects, or
in science where the observer or experimenter endeavors to the best of
his ability to give an impersonal and accurate judgment in his report of
the facts of nature.
Estimates of Star-Magnitudes.
The astronomer, for example, desires a true report of the magni-
tudes of the stars, and would not welcome the control of judgment by a
mental habit. For centuries, of course, all of the visible stars (down to
the sixth magnitude) have been known by name and their degrees of
brightness estimated by various observers. But reports, owing to the
many variable conditions of observation, such as moon-light, proximity
of brighter stars, milky-way, declination of the star at time of observa-
tion, atmospheric absorption, etc., and the observer's characteristic men-
tal scale of magnitudes, lacked tmiformity to such a degree that in the
latter half of the nineteenth century it was agreed among the astrono-
mers of the world that a complete re-estimation of all stars, both vis-
ible and telescopic was necessary; and the tremendous undertaking was
parceled out to the various great observatories. Suppose we turn to the
preface of a report on the visible stars which was made by one of these
observatories, in order to learn from Professor E. C. Pickering how
the list of 4,260 stars, which is to demand our attention, was made by
selection from seventeen existing catalogues or star-lists, and what aims
directed the observations :
An extensive and systematic inquiry, by photometric methods, into the com-
parative brightness of the stars, has long been regarded among astronomers as
highly desirable. . . . The observations to be described in the present volume
were planned with a view of obtaining a satisfactory determination of the com-
parative brightness of all stars not fainter than the sixth magnitude, which could
conveniently be observed in this latitude. In the absence of a definite and gener-
ally accepted scale of magnitude, it was impracticable to include in the list of stars
to be observed all those surpassing a certain degree of brightness, and to exclude
all others. The course adopted, therefore, was to form the required list by the
selection from several standard catalogues of stars estimated in any one of these
catalogues to be of the first six magnitudes. In consequence of accidental errors
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INFLUENCE OF MENTAL HABIT UPON JUDGMENT 241
of estimation in one or another of the catalogues thus consulted, many of the
stars included in the present work are no doubt fainter' than others which have
been excluded; but if any stars are omitted which should actually be regarded as
of the sixth magnitude, they must have been under-estimated in all these cata-
logues.*
The Meridian Photometer is described* as an instrument with a
horizontal eye-piece and systems of prisms and lenses such that the
images of the pole-star and of the star to be estimated could be brought
into the center of the field for direct comparison; and the method of
observation, requiring two persons, provided for the estimation of in-
equality to be read from a scale with gradations in tenths of a degree.
Thus the observer's error was reduced to a minimtmi: he brought the
two images close together, turned a "Nicol" prism until the observed
star was judged to be equal in brightness to the pole-star; the recorder
took the reading from the scale over which the indicator of the "Nicol"
turning mechanism played; the observer then turned the corresponding
prism until the pole star just disappeared, then regained a brightness
equal to that of the observed star ; the recorder again took the reading
from the scale ; the images were reversed in position, and the procedure
was repeated. From the average of the readings the brightness of the
star was determined to a hundredth-magnitude. Any error on the ob-
server's part would have to be limited to the mental process of judging
the equality of two visible images, after the errors peculiar to "The
Method of Minimal Changes in its Application to Stimulus Compari-
son," ^® have been eliminated, and may be considered entirely negligible.
The magnitudes in this catalogue, consequently, approach scientific
accuracy, and their distribution may be readily accepted as a true dis-
tribution of the real magnitudes of the visible stars.^^ They are listed,
however, beside the magnitudes published in several other catalogues,
chief among which is Argelander's Durchmusterung, published from the
great observatory at Bonn during 1852-1861.
This catalogue includes all the stars down to the loth magnitude,
from the pole-star to 2® beyond the equator. The stars common to the
two lists, therefore, would be all the visible stars (or stars listed in one
• Observations with the Meridian Photometer during the years 1879- 1882.
Annals of the Astronomical Observatory of Harvard College, Cambridge, 1884,
14 : Preface.
» Op. cit., pp. 1-9.
^0 Vide, Kulpe : Outlines of Psychology. London, igoi, pp. 56-7.
11 For the elaborate provisions made for eliminating the errors due to vary-
ing objective conditions of observation the reader is referred to the Annals.
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242 MENTAL HABIT
or more of the 17 catalogues as the 6th magnitude or brighter) in the
northern heavens and down to 2^ beyond the equator. These stars, 2884
in number, furnished the basis of our calculations. They were tabu-
lated, by magnitude, according to both estimates ; the Photometric esti-
mates being taken to the nearest tenth-magnitude (as 5.54 = 5.5, and
5.56 = 5.6; but 5.55 = 5.6, and 5.65 =5.7*)-
A comparison of the distributions of the Photometric and the
Durchmusterung magnitudes (for the 2884 stars common to both lists),
shown in Plate XIX,** is interesting and instructive. The latter curve
shows the characteristics which we have already observed in the distribu-
tions of ages and of prison-sentences ; a marked preference is shown for
the round ntunbers.
This fact had already been noticed by Professor C. S. Peirce, who
oflFered a very interesting explanation :
The Durchmusterung is one of the best collections of magnitudes which we
have; and here are some of the numbers of stars of different magnitudes accord-
ing to that catalogue:
Magnitude Number Magnitude Number
6.0
618
6.6
159
6.1
106
6.7
457
6:2
293
6.8
901
6.3
275
6.9
137
64
lOI
7.0
2.141
6.5
1,239
Total
6.427
It is impossible to believe that the stars are really distributed in the heavens
in this singular way; so that there are really 1239 stars of the 6.5 magnitude and
only 159 of the 6.6. My father has already introduced into another branch of as-
tronomy the principle that the magnitudes of the different parts into which an ob-
server divides a scale in estimating tenths are respectively proportional to the
numbers of cases in which the figures denoting them are found to occur. Thus
if we find in any observations of transits by eye and ear, twice as many transits
the time of which ends with 0.5 sec as of those which end with 04 sec, we as-
sume that in that observer's mental subdivision of the second the fifth part was
twice as long an interval as the fourth. We may extend the same idea to the
comparison of scales of star-magnitudes. If one observer says there are 9 first
magnitude stars in the northern heavens and another finds only 8, clearly the lat-
ter consigns some star to the 2d magnitude which the other considers to be of
* Which differs from the conversion from hundredths to tenths in the cata-
logue, where a magnitude with a 5 in the hundredth's place was changed to the
nearest even tenth: 555 — 5-6; but 5.65 = 5.6. For this reason, were the con-
verted magnitudes in the catalogue tabulated, an artificial excess upon the even
tenth magnitudes would disturb the distribution.
i« Infra, p. 243. The magnitudes are given in tenths.
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INFLUENCE OF MENTAL HABIT UPON JUDGMENT
243
the 1st, and therefore he makes the limit between the first and second magnitudes
to be brighter than the other makes it. Suppose that neither of the two observers
made any errors in his estimations and that their discrepancies arose solely from
the differences of their scales of magnitudes. Then if they observed the same
stars, whichever had fewer stars brighter than the 4th magnitude, for example,
would have made the limit between his third and fourth magnitudes the brighter.^*
Professor Peirce had his aid, Mr. Farquhar, re-tabulate all of the
Durchmusterung estimates down to the 6.1 magnitude, and by adding
K. von Littrow's tabulation down to the 9.5 magnitude he constructed a
table from which he calculated an ''equitable distribution" of the 3x4^925
stars in the list, such as one might expect to show the actual distribu-
tion of the stars in the heavens,^^ and calculated the theoretical magni-
•4- '^
Plate XIX. — Magnitudes of the Stars reported by various observers to be as
bright as, or brighter than, the 6th magnitude.
The solid line gives the estimates in Argelander's Durchmusterung; the
smooth curve gives the theoretical distribution (vide, footnote 14) ;
the small circles give the Harvard photometric determinations.
— Students' Grades, from applications for entrance into Stanford
University. 3186 Cases.
i» Photometric Researches, 1872-75. AntMls of the Asironomical Observa-
tory of Harvard College, 1878, 9:8-9.
i*Thc smooth curve in Plate XIX is a limiting curve estimated from this
table, published in the Annals on p. 26. The true magnitudes should be found
either in the curve or just above it, if the stars arc "equitably distributed" in the
heavens.
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244 MENTAL HABIT
tudes, thus reducing the Durchmusterung magnitudes to the scale of
equitable distribution. From the curves in Plate XIX one may see how
much the Durchmusterung distribution departs from the theoretical,
when the magnitudes down to the 6th are considered ; and also how the
theoretical approximated fairly closely the real distribution as later de-
termined by Photometric observations.**
But were we to take at their face value the regular departures of
the Durchmusterung curve from the Photometric, we should be doing
injustice to the Bonn observatory and we should ako lose an oppor-
tunity to consider some facts which will be of assistance in a final analy-
sis and explanation of the round-number mental habit.
A letter *• from Professor Schonfeld, at Bonn, written in explana-
tion of the manner in which the Durchmusterung estimates were made,
informs us that during one period of observation no especial effort was
made to estimate magnitudes in smaller gradations than half-magni-
tudes; during another, only descriptive words were added to the half-
magnitude estimates ; and only finally did the observers endeavor to esti-
mate to the tenth of a magnitude. All estimates were then converted
into magnitudes expressed to a tenth. The first method contributed
about 20% of the estimates ; the second about 50% ; and the last about
30%.
This would account for much of the deviation of the Durchmus-
terung curve, but not necessarily for the greater part of it. If we as-
sume that all three methods, in their stated proportions, contributed to
the distribution of the magnitudes from 6.0 to 7.0 quoted above from
Professor Peirce, and deduct proportionally from the ntunbers of esti-
mates of the magnitudes 6.0, 6.5, and 7.0, a number of cases (1820)
equivalent to 20% of the total (which is 6427) plus a sixth of 50% of
the total, we shall have made a rigorous correction for the number of
^* It would seem that, after all, not all of the stars down to the 6th magni-
tude were included in the Harvard list, since its distribution breaks from the
theoretical before the 6th magnitude is reached: Roughly one might estimate that
at least 15 stars of the 5^, 45 stars of the 5.9, and 100 stars of the 6.0 magnitudes
were omitted. In this case, however, as was observed by Professor Pickering,
those stars wopld necessarily have been omitted in each of 17 respective cata-
logues, from which the list was compiled. At any rate, since there must be more
stars of the 6.0 magnitude than of the 5.9, or of the 5.8, the peak of the distribu-
tion curve should fall on the 6.0 abscissa, if all stars as bright as the 6th magni-
tude are included.
!• Published in the Annals, 1878, 9 : 27.
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INFLUENCE OF MENTAL HABIT UPON JUDGMENT
estimations not intentionally made to the tenth of a magnitude,
gives the corrected distribution :
245
This
6.0
335
6.6
159
6.1
106
67
457
6.2
293
6.8
901
6.3
27S
6.9
137
64
lOI
7.0
1,141
6.5
873
Plate XX gives the curve of the distribution, in relation to the esti-
mated limiting curve of "equitable distribution'^ for the original number
Maenitudee, 0 .1
.9 7^0
Plate XX. — Corrected Distribution of the Durchmusterung estimates
of stars of 6.0 to 7.0 magnitudes.
of cases ; the ordinate on 6.8 indicates that the correction has probably
been too great, yet the round-number estimates are still in considerable
excess over the others, tending to show that the influence upon the as-
tronomer's judgment was unconscious, when he endeavored to assign
the star-brightnesses to the tenth of a magnitude.
This evidence is supported by the direct testimony of Professor
Schonfeld in his letter to which reference has already been made. He
said that even from the time observations were begun to be made to the
tenth of a magnitude until the end of the work "the decimals i, 4, 6,
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246
MENTAL HABIT
and 9, but especially i and 6, were much less often estimated than the
others." "
One of the principal reasons that Professor Schonfeld, in the same
letter, offered for the earlier methods of observation is enlightening, and
will no doubt be found to underlie much of the evidence for the round-
number habit. He said : "We could not discriminate between the mag-
nitudes 74, 7.5, and 7.6, for example, with the same degree of certainty
as between 7.3 and 7.4, or 7.6 and y.yy There is an inter-class field
about the division-marks (here, half-magnitudes) in the mental scale,
within which discrimination is felt to be difficult; but differences no
greater, between values in adjoining inter-classes, are felt to be readily
appreciated. In accordance with this feeling one might expect an ex-
cess of estimates upon the mid-points of the inter-class fields, x. e., upon
the division marks. This is probably a normal situation when estimates
are made in accordance with a mental scale. Whether the feeling is
justified in objective fact, or is illusory, is another matter, which depends
upon the stability of the mental scale and upon distinguishable dif-
ferences.
The inferences drawn from our data in the above paragraphs have
been verified in data published by E. Grossmann, of Kiel.^^* He calcu-
Plate XXa.— Estimates of Star-Magnitudes.
Curve A, Seeliger typical distribution. (From Grossmann.)
B, Observer J.
C, Early observations by H. " "
D, Later observations by H. " "
In order to show the relation between 0 and 9 as well as between 0 and /,
the o is repeated after the 9. The most probable distribution is shown in the
lightly-drawn ordinate.
iT"Doch ist dabei zu bemerken, dass auch dann, und bis zum Schluss der
Arbeit, die Zchntel i, 4, 6, und 9, besonders aber i und 6, viel seltener geschatzt
wurden, als die ubrigen." Loc. cit,
iTfl Grossmann : Ueber Schatzungen nach Augenmass. Astronomische Nach^
richten, Kiel, 1906, 170: 159-160.
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INFLUENCE OF MENTAL HABIT UPON JUDGMENT 247
lated from the Sceliger typical distribution of the fixed stars the number
of stars there should be for each tenth magnitude down to p.o. He then
distributed these hypothetical stars of all magnitudes over the decimal
scale (.0-.9), getting the values plotted in Curve A, Plate XXa. The
deviations of the observations of two observers (/. and H.) from this
typical distribution were found. If the typical distribution is repre-
sented by the light horizontal ordinate (at lOO per looo), the deviations
resulting from mental habit in the observations of /. are shown in Curve
B ; and those of //. in C and D. The "U" form of the curves indicates
a strong preference for the o tenth; and in Curves B and C the 5 tenth
is preferred. The similarity of Curves C and D indicates the permanent
nature of an observer's mental habit; the observaticms in the two sets
were made five years apart.
Students' Grades.
Another class of judgments, made upon the basis of a mental scale,
which might be expected to be fairly free from the conscious influence
of mental habit, is the final grades which teachers assign in the form of
per cent to students in their respective subjects, especially when these
grades are designed to reveal accurately the scholarship of the student
and are expected to be used in his application for entrance into the uni-
versity. Through the courtesy of the Registrar's Office *• we were en-
abled to tabulate 3186 percentile grades from the applications of 213
students. The applications came from all over the country, and the
grading was done by perhaps not less than 1000 different teachers. The
distribution curve is shown in Plate XIX,^* adjacent to the distributions
of the star-magnitudes, with which it compares most favorably as evi-
dence for the round-number habit.
It may be argued, however, that with teachers as with the judges,
many of them consider the five-unit gradations sufficiently fine. But
like the judges they do use the finer gradations, as the distribution
shows, and as a class they are too conscientious to neglect a means of
refining justice beyond a point which would challenge criticism from
both pupils and parents. Indeed, fractional per cents are not uncom-
mon in practice. I doubt if any teacher accustomed to grading by the
percentile scale, who has not made a statistical study of the process, will
be ready to claim that the five-per-cent divisions are sufficiently close
^* For which acknowledgment is due particularly to Assistant Registrar John
Ezra McDowell.
i» Supra, p. 243.
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248 MENTAL HABIT
for grading.*® And yet no one will defend our distribution curve, as
against a smooth curve, as representative of the real distribution of
merit. The evidence seems fairly good for unconscious influence of
mental habit upon judgment.
Of course, if the scale were linear and visible, like a meter-stick,
and if the observed merit of the student were definite, like the edge of
a chalk-box, estimates to the nearest centimeter would distribute smooth-
ly, free from round-number preferences. It is only because the degrees
of observed merit are sufiiciently indefinite to migrate upon the mental
scale that greater frequency upon round numbers is possible. Indeed,
there is a fair probability that the least discriminable gradations upon the
mental percentile scale lie about 8% apart.*^
But if the length of a chalk-box were to be estimated by a single
observer a great number of times, or by a large number of observers,
to tenths of a millimeter, a distribution of the estimates might reveal
the influence of the round-munber habit. Here the scale is objective and
the estimate is limited to the range between calibrations. Then, if the
*® Only about ten applications were discarded on account of uniformly round-
number grading.
•*To detennine the minimal distinguishable steps on the mental percentile
scale. Professor Starch had "two papers in English work graded by 142 teachers
of English and one paper in geometry graded by 118 teachers of geometry. The
grades of one English paper ranged from 64 to 98 with a probable error of 4.0.
The grades of the other ranged from 50 to 98 with a probable error of 4.8. The
grades of the geometry paper ranged from 28 to 92 with a probable error of 7.5.
To discover whether this wide variation might be due to the difference in standard
among the schools, ten freshman English papers were graded by ten instructors
of freshman Englisli in the same institution. The mean variation of all these
grades was 5.3. In order to eliminate the variation due to differences in standard
among individual instructors, all the marks were weighted by the amount that
each individual differed from the general average. The mean variation of these
weighted grades was 4.2.
"In order to compare the accuracy of measurement by means of a mental
scale in an entirely different field, five rods ranging from 10 to 23 inches were
judged in terms of inches by eleven experienced carpenters. The mean varia-
tion ... is identical with the variation of the grades, which indicates that the
deviation of the marks is not due to the nature of the examinaton paper but it
implies that measurements by means of a mental scale simply cannot be made
any more accurately.
'The steps on a scale should be at least twice the size of the . . . probable
error of the measurements in order to be distinguishable steps," — approximately
8 points. Between the grades 60 and 100, the minimal number of distinguishable
steps is five. (Reliability and Distribution of Grades. Psychological Bulletin,
1913, 10:74).
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INFLUENCE OF MENTAL HABIT UPON JUDGMENT 249
observers were men of science whose observations were expected to be
permanently recorded, and used in the advancement of science, any reg-
ular deviations from a smooth curve would be regarded as decisive evi-
dence for the unconscious influence of mental habit upon judgment.
Temperature on Pikes Peak.
Over forty years ago meteorological observations on Pikes Peak
(the highest regular station then in the world), were made under the
direction of the Chief Signal Service Officer of the United States Army,
General A. W. Greely. The records for hourly observations of baro-
metric pressure and of temperature, for the months of August and Sep-
tember, 1874, are available *^ for our inspection. Both sets of observa-
tions were tabulated according to the final digit (hundredths of an inch
in the barometric readings; tenths of a degree in the readings of a
Fahrenheit thermometer). The barometric records were found to be
subject to great and apparently regular variation in the distribution over
the digits from i to o; but since they had evidently been corrected for
both temperature and altitude, they are unserviceable for determining
what the preferred digits were. The distribution of 975 thermometer-
readings is shown in curve A, in Plate XXI.** The "U" form of the curve
indicates the preference for the 0 deviation from the calibration-mark on
the scale, the increasing insecurity of the estimate as the objective tem-
perature departed from a calibration, and in this field of insecurity a
preference for 5.
Temperature in Mauritius, in the Greenwich Observatory, in
Hertfordshire, and in Dundee.
A marked preference for the even and the half degree in thermo-
metric readings returned from newly established second-order meteor-
ological stations in Mauritius (a British island in the Indian Ocean)
suggested to Albert Walter (of the Royal Alfred Observatory) the ad-
visability of examining the distribution curve of the "tenths of estima-
tion" for the purpose of testing the reliability of the observations."
From two stations 896 observations were received. Their distribution
^^ Annals of the Astronomical Observatory of Harvard College, 1880,
22:4i5fF.
" Infra, p. 251.
•* Albert Walter : On errors of estimation in thermometric observations.
Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, 1909, 35 : 249-257.
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250 MENTAL HABIT
over the tenth degrees is shown in Plate XXI, Curve B, But to esti-
mate their unreliability he needed a standard from experienced and com-
petent observers. This he obtained from 4673 observations made in the
Greenwich Observatory, during the years 1903-04, from the thermom-
eters exposed in the Stevenson screen. The distribution of these expert
observations is shown in the same Plate, Curve C. The deviations (from
100 per 1000) in the frequency of the various tenths in this curve started
the author on a bit of calculation. Applying Pearson's formula of
Closeness of Fit," he found A = 14.37, P = log 62.45705-100; which
indicated that the probability that the deviations were caused by chance
is so slight that in its expression in decimal form the first significant
digit is separated from the decimal point by 37 zeros.
John Hopkinson, who heard the paper incorporating these results
read, at one of the Society's meetings, went home to Hertfordshire and
subjected his own observations to a statistical inquiry which yielded
some interesting results.** His distribution of 2000 observations (for
500 days) made near the conmiencement of his observations is shown in
Curve E; and of an equal number of observations (for a like period)
made about 20 years later is shown in Curve F, Then to determine
whether the deviations were caused by reading the dry- and wet-bulb
thermometers (vertical), or the maximum and minimum thermometers
(horizontal), the observations were segregated and separately distrib-
uted as shown in Curves G and H respectively.
G. Hellmann*^ has recently published the distribution of the esti-
mations in tenths in 7304 readings of the thermometer calibrated in sin-
gle degrees, made at Dundee during the years 1901-10, which is shown
in Curve D,
It is interesting to learn that although unskilled observers make
greater systematic errors in thermometric readings than skilled observers
do, the most expert observers make them, and make them in sufficient
size to introduce serious error in the calculation of humidity from the
readings of the dry- and wet-bulb thermometers. It is also interesting
to note that the characteristics in the mental habit of an individual ob-
server may stick to him during 20 years of experience, and apply to
"both vertical and horizontal scales. (The decrease of error on the hori-
*• Vide, supra, p. no.
'•Op. cfV., p. 275.
«T Hellmann: Psychologisch bedingte Fehler bei meteorologischen Beobacht-
ungen. Sitsungsberichte der Koniglich Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaf-
ten, 1913, Erster Hatbband, p. 286.
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Plate XXI. — Thennomctric Observations. Frequency distributions of the
tenth degrees.
Curve A, On Pikes Peak. 975 cases. (Greely.)
B. In Mauritius. 896 cases. (From Walter.)
C In the Greenwich Observatory. 4673 cases. (From Walter.)
D. In Dundee. 7304 cases. (From Hellmann.)
E, In Hertfordshire, earlier observations. 2000 cases. (From Hopkinson.)
F, In Hertfordshire, later observations. 2000 cases. (From Hopkinson.)
G. In Hertfordshire, vertical scale, 2000 cases. (From Hopkinson.)
H. In Hertfordshire, horizontal scale. 2000 cases. (From Hopkinson.)
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252 MENTAL HABIT
zontal scale may be due to wider calibrations, or to the psychological ad-
vantage of a horizontal scale.)
Cloudiness at Bremen.
Albert v. Obermayer *• has taken occasion to point out grave errors
in the meteorological observations of cloudiness. He observes that,
when cloudiness is estimated on a scale from o to lo, it is unlikely that
a wide deviation of the frequency on any given loth, from the average,
in one station's reports for a year, is a correct report, when the same
deviation is not reported from neighboring stations ; or that such a devia-
tion in one station's reports for a period of years is correct. He g^ves
the distribution of 2190 observations from Bremen for the years 1900
and 1901 ; 290 observations were 0, and 754 were 10. Excluding the
latter because of its disproportionate frequency, we have remaining 1436
observations which distribute over the respective tenths as is shown in
Plate XXn, Curve A. It forms a remarkably smooth "U" curve.
Rain-Fall in New England.
Curve B, in the same Plate shows like characteristics in the distri-
bution of 1928 reports of Daily Precipitation from 53 stations, chiefly
in New England, during the half-year January- June, i888.** The esti-
mates were made in hundredths of an inch, and only the records above
(but not including) .10 were tabulated.
Estimates of Time from Kymograph Time-Records.
Curves C and D show the distributions of the estimates of time-
intervals to tenths of a vibration in a kymograph time-record,*® made
by a statistical assistant and the writer, respectively. In the former dis-
tribution there are 5034 cases ; in the latter, 141 2. The observers were
both chagrined upon learning the extent to which their judgments had
*« Obermayer: Die Haufigkcitszahlen der Berwolkung. Sitgungsberichte der
Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftlichen Klasse der Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wis-
senschaften, 1908, Bd. 117, Abteilung Ila, pp. 217-229.
*» Observations of the New England Meteorological Society in the year 1888,
Annals of the Astronomical Observatory of Harvard College, 1889, 21 : 76 flf.
•oThe electric time-marker was actuated at the rate of 31.75 times a second,
and the individual vibrations were separated on the kymograph paper by a dis-
tance ranging from 1^25 to 1.67 mm. Estimates were made to tenths of this mag-
nitude.
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Plate XXII. — Distributions of the Final Digit in judgments of various kinds
over the number series, to illustrate number-preference
or the "personal scale."
The ordinates in curves A-D give absolute values; in curves E-H, relative values
(per M). The lightly-drawn ordinate represents the most
probable distribution or the mean.
Curve A, Cloudiness at Bremen. 1436 cases. (From Obermayer.)
B. Rain-fall in New England. 1928 cases. (New Eng. Meteor. S.)
C. Kymograph time-records. Obs. Dp. 5034 cases. (Stanford.)
D. Kymograph time-records. Obs. Cr. 1412 cases. (Stanford.)
JB. Ages of men from 30-39 years. 5498,871 cases.* (12th U. S. Census.)
P. Criminal sentences from 10-40 years.t 5018 cases, (nth U. S. Census.)
G, Star-magnitudes 6.0 to 6.9 from Plate XIX. 2619 cases.
H. Students' grades 70-99 from Plate XIX. 3154 cases.
* This curve is tilted back to horizontal by a reduction equivalent to the death
rate ; the number of cases is consequently also reduced.
t The plotted 0 value is j4 instead of ^ the aggregate of sentences for 10^ 20,
30, and 40 years,— a reduction which seems warrantable.
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254
MENTAL HABIT
been influenced by the round-number habit. Plate XXIII shows the dis-
tributions of these regular deviations over the various magnitudes of
time-intervals from 2.0 to 6.3. From curve A it may be noted that the
4PS
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Plate XXIII.— Kymograph Time-Records. Curves of the frequency of estimates
2.0 to 6.3 units.
Curve A, Observer Dp. (Stanford.)
B, " Cr. ( " )
assistant has a negative deviation on the 5's, showing an individual
characteristic, of which he was equally unconscious.
Curves E, F, G, and H, Plate XXII, show in the same form the cor-
responding characteristics in the census age retimis, the criminal sen-
tences, the estimation of star-magnitudes, and the percentile grades of
students.
It is seen that whether the estimates are upon such values as ages,
terms of sentence, students' grades, star-magnitudes, and cloudiness, or
upon decimal values of a thermometer-scale, and spatial divisions on a
kymograph-record, the frequency distributions present a common char-
acteristic— shown by a "U"-form curve. In the scientific field this S3rs-
tematic error in estimates is unwelcome, which is sufficient evidence that
the influence of mental habit upon judgment is here unconscious,
subliminal.
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INFLUENCE OF MENTAL HABIT UPON JUDGMENT 255
How early this error in the estimation of the former class of values
was noticed the writer does not know. It has probably been long known
by census statisticians. But a signal case was pointed out in 1886 by J.
Beloch,'^ who tabulated the ages of deceased persons from the Corpus
Inscriptionum Latinarum. The distribution of 1809 cases over the unit's
digit is shown in Table XXIV, Curve D, With respect to the latter class
of values it was without doubt first noticed in the field of astronomy
when the eye-and-ear method was employed for observing the time of the
transit of a star. In 1858 Dr. Julius Hartmann •* pointed out individual
variations in the estimation of tenths of a second, which he attributed to
individual habits in the manner of making the estimate, and observed
that practice only serves to fix the individual habit responsible for the
error more firmly upon the observer. He constructed an elaborate piece
of apparatus designed to bring these habits to light and to provide prac-
tice for their correction. Professor Benjamin Peirce,** on April 12,
1859, read a paper before the American Academy in which he said that
observations are not evenly distributed over the tenths of a second, and
that consequently the mental time-scale does not correspond to the ob-
jective time-scale:
The time-scale of each observer was inferred from the relative number of
times which each tenth of a second occurred in his observations. It was shown
that the habits of the observer were invariable in this respect, and were not sub-
ject to change with time or circumstance.
Curiously enough these specific references to an important error seem
to have passed without notice until the matter was again brought to at-
tention about thirty years later by several astronomers whose findings
are worth our notice.
Estimations of Star-Transits.
By the eye-and-ear method of observation the observer watches the
moving image of the star as it takes its course across the field in his
telescope, locates its two positions occupied synchronously with the two
successive strokes of the clock between which it traverses the spider's
•1 Beloch : Die Bevolkerung der Greichisch-Romanischcn Welt. Leipzig, 1886,
s. 47.
«* Hartmann: Einige Beobachtungen und Bemerkungen uber Personaldiflfer-
enz. Grundert's Archiv der Mathetnatik und Physik, Greifswald, 1858, 31 : 1-26.
M Peirce : Abstract of a memoir on the personal peculiarities of astronomical
observers. Proceedings American Academy of Arts and Sciences, i860, 4: I5»-
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256 MENTAL HABIT
web (the meridian), and estimates the ratio of the distance between the
web and the first position in terms of tenths of the distance between the
two positions. Since the latter distance represents a second of time, the
estimate gives in a fraction of a second beyond the time of the clock at
the first of the strokes the time, to a tenth of a second, of the transit. It
is true that instruments vary ; but the essential of the method is that the
decimal part of a second is determined by an estimate of a decimal part
of an imaginary line the ends of which are fixed by the positions of the
image of the star when the clock strikes the two seconds nearest the
transit-time.
If the estimates do not contain the systematic error which we have
been portraying, they should, in an aggregate of a thousand or more,
distribute fairly evenly over the respective tenths from o to p.
F. Boquet*^ tabulated a large number of observations made by
three observers at the Paris Observatory during all seasons of the year
and with three different instruments. The aggregated results for the
three respective observers (A, 4000 observations ; B, 3000 ; and C, 2000)
are shown in Plate XXIV, Curves A, B, and C. He concluded that there
is an error of estimation for each tenth which remains sensibly constant
for each observer; and that this error varies from one observer to an-
other.'^ This error he called "Viquation dicimale," which is the same as
Peirce's "time-scale," or what has been more generally called the "per-
sonal scale," since it may refer to either space or time.
P. Bruck ^ produced new examples, in considerable quantity, from
his own observations : 2000 observations of stars in the equatorial lati-
tude, made during 1889-90, and 3980 of stars in -26** and 468® made in
1890. The distribution of the aggregated observations is shown in Curve
E of the same plate. He concluded that change in declination does not
change his systematic errors.
G. Lewitzky," of Charkow, published the distribution of 1868 tran-
sits of stars of the first four magnitudes, made by himself by the Zinger
method, which is shown in Curve F. He supplemented Boquet's conclu-
sions with the observation that always one of the intermediate tenths
(0.4-0.7) is least often estimated by each observer.
>^Boquet: Recherche sur la valeur des observations de passages. Bulletin
Astronomique, Paris, 1889, 6:337-343.
«» Op, cit, p. 341.
»• Bruck: Documents relatifs i T^quation d^imale. Idem, 1890, 7:413-8.
•^Lewitzky: Ueber den personlichen Fehler bei Durchgangsbeobachtungen.
Astronomische Nachrichten, 1890, 124:105-8.
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Plate XXIV. — Star-Transits. Distributions of tenths of a second,
showing the *'iquaHon dicimale."
Curve A, Paris Observatory, observer A. 4000 cases. (From Boquet. )
B. " " " B. 3000 "
C. " " " C. 2000 "
E. Besancon " Bruck. 5980 "
F. Charkow " Lewitzky. 1868 "
— ^Ages of the Latin dead.
D, Ages from the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum. ( '' Beloch. )
( " Bruck. )
( " Lewitzky.)
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258 MENTAL HABIT
Otto Meissner," of Potsdam, reported several distributions of a
large number of observations of transits made by observers N. and K.
The former of 8,505, and the latter of 16,215 observations are shown in
Plate XXV, Curves A and B, Two sets, of 2249 and 2100 observations
respectively, made by Observer N, in periods four years apart, show the
permanence of this observer's Equation decimale; their distributions are
shown in Curves C and D. The distribution of a large number of ob-
servations (12,285) made by a third observer {W.) is of special inter-
est since the distribution of the first set of 2069 observations exhibited
the characteristics of the usual "personal scale" while that of the aggre-
gate departs from them widely. Curve H (Plate XXV) shows the dis-
tribution of the aggregate in heavy line ; Curve /, the distribution of the
first set in light broken line ; and Curve K, the distribution of the sixth
set (1839 observations) in light solid line. The explanation is that the
observer became aware of his systematic error, especially upon, the o
tenth and sought to correct it. The lesson is that the observer's con-
sciousness of how his observations are distributed is not reliable. The
neglect of o in the last set is greater than the preference for it in the
first. The preferences of ^ over j, 7 over d, and 8 owtr p, are common
to the three curves — persistent elements of the observer's "personal
scale."
Boquet has shown •• by the ^ulation of a relatively small ntunber
of observations that the (quation dicimale remains fairly constant in the
individual observer's use of different instruments. Observer B. made
712 observations with the Cercle nUridien du Jardin, 946 with the Lu-
nette de Gambey, and 1000 with the Grand instrument miridien, the re-
spective distributions of which are shown in Plate XXV, Curves E, F,
and G,
He also has shown *• that the error of the observer persists whether
he makes his observation by the eye-and-ear method, by the eye only,
or by the ear only. One observer made 1000 observations each with the
Grand instrument miridien (i) by the eye-and-ear method, (2) by read-
ing the C^rcfe— eye only, (3) and by reading the niveau— tyt only; and
(4) he made 1000 estimates, in tenths of a second, by comparing the
strokes of the second and the half-second siderial chronometers— ear
^Meissner: Ueber systematische Fehler bei Zeit- und Raumgrossenschatz-
tingen. Astronomische Nachrichten, Kiel, 1906, 172:137-143.
** Boquet: Les recherches des astronomes sur T^quation d6cimale. L'annie
Psychologique, 1913, 19:27-65.
^0 Boquet : Sur T^uation d^imale. Bulletin Astronomique, 1903, 20 : 165-170.
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Plate XXV. — Star-Transits (continued). Showing independence of "I'iguafion
Curve dScimale" of practice, instrument, and voluntary correction.
A. Potsdam Observatory, observer K. 8505 cases, (From Meissncr.)
B.
C.
D.
E. Paris
F.
G.
H. Potsdam
/.
K,
N. 16,215
N. 2249 early "
N. 2100 later "
B. Cerde; 712 "
B. Lunette; 946 "
B. Grand Instr. 1000 "
W. 12,285
W. 2069 early "
W. 1839 later "
Boquet.
Meissner.
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260 MENTAL HABIT
only. The respective distributions are shown in Plate XXVI, Curves
A, B, C, and D (solid line). Curve E, superposed over Curve D, shows
the distribution found by J. Plassmann *^ in estimating by ear tenths of
seconds ; although the two observers have characteristic differences their
curves agree in type: the double "U" form — ^the objective unit was a
half-second interval. Curves of this type represent the normal "personal
scale" when the observations are made from instruments which have
the o,s calibration, as may be seen from the adjacent Curves (/ and K)
which are drawn from data presented by G. Hellmann.** The solid line
gives the distribution of 3652 observations of a 0.5** thermometer at
Erfurt during the years 1901-10; the broken line, of an equal number of
like observations made during the same period at Wasserleben.
Professor S. D. Townley, however, had previously published *' dis-
tributions of his own transit observations, which indicated that the iquc^
Hon dicimale persists, in part at least, after the observer increases his
vigilance, and even after he turns from time-estimation by ear to space-
estimation by eye. He explained that although he used the eye-and-ear
method, with a three-inch Fauth transit and a chronometer beating half-
seconds, he estimated "the time of the transit of the star, not the space
passed over, to the nearest tenth of a second." His first series of 188
observations (see Plate XXVI, Curve F) revealed a strong preference
for 0 and 5, and a marked neglect for 4 and 8, "Feeling sure that such
large discrepancies should not occur," he determined to watch himself
in future, and he carried out a second series of 816 observations (see
Curve C) in which, although the deviations as a whole were much de-
creased, the preference for o and the neglect of 4 and 8 remained. And
these three characteristics persist in a third series of 211 observations
with the chronograph, by which the estimations were made from the
chronograph sheets by eye (see Curve H).
It may perhaps be properly remarked here that the mental habit of
the Squation dicitnale, or the "personal scale," is to be disting^shed
from that of the "personal equation" ^ which is also associated with the
*i Plassmann : Festschrift der Gorres-Gesellschaft f (ir Georg von Hertling.
Kempten and Miinchen, 1913, S. 497 ff.; quoted by Bauch: Beobachtungsfehler in
der Meteorologischen Praxis. Fortschritte der Psychologic, 1914, 2:252.
*« Op. cit., p. 286.
*» Townley: Notes from the time-service of the Washburn Observatory.
Astronomy and Astro-physics, Northfield, Minn., 1892, 11:467-9.
**An excellent historical and explanatory account of the Personal Equation
has been written by E. C. Sanford: American Journal of Psycholo^, 1888, 2:3-38^
271-398, 403-430.
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Plate XXVL — Star-Transits (contintied). Distributions showing independence ol
Curve "Viquation dScimale" of the special senses.
A. Paris Observatory, observer O. Eye-and-ear. looo cases. (From Boquet)
B. " " " O. Eye only (Cercle) looo "
C. " " " O. Eye only (Niveau) 1000 "
Z>. " " " O. Ear only (time} loOo
E, Warendorf G3rmnasium. Plassmann. Ear only(time) 961
P. Washburn Obs. Eye-and-ear method. Ear only. 188
G. " " Eye-and-ear method. Ear only. 816
If, " " Chronogr^h method. Eye only. ail ** " "
— ^Thermometric Observations, with .^* Calibrations. Showing curves com-
parable with curves D and E in which .5 sec was the standard of judgment
/. Erfurt, 1901-ia 365a cases. (From Hellmann.)
K, Wasserleben, 1901-10. ^52 cases. " "
" BaucL
(From Townley.)
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262 MENTAL HABIT
estimation of star-transits but which is more directly operative in the
chronograph method of observation. By this method the observer with
his hand on a telegraph key signals the moment the image of the star is
bisected by the meridian line. His "personal equation" is his reaction-
time. And since it, too, is subject to the influence of mental habit, even
to the extreme of becoming a negative quantity (in anticipatory reac-
tion), its operation in astronomical observation constitutes another dis-
tinct type of influence of mental habit upon judgment. Of course, the
"personal equation" is also operative in the eye-and-ear method of ob-
servation, in fixing the locations of the star-image the distance between
which the meridian intersects ; and its effect may be simulated if the ag-
gregate of the frequencies of the tenths d-p exceeds that of the fre-
quencies of the tenths 1-4 in the observer's "personal scale," for, ob-
viously, an average of a number of observations would be too large, the
transit would be reported too late. On the other hand should the ex-
cess fall upon the tenths 1-4, the usual "personal equation" would be
opposed and the transit would be reported too early. But, practically,
as was remarked by Chauvenet,** since the effect of the "personal scale"
of an observer may be considered as constant, and as combining with the
"personal equation," it may be regarded as forming part of the latter, as
determined from a large number of observations. Corrective formulae
for the "personal equation" eliminate the effects of both from the mean
of a large number of observations. For correction of the time of single
transits, however, "personal scale" formulae are required.
Estimates of Time and Space.
Some experimental results of estimates of time and space contrib-
ute to our inquiry concerning the influence of mental habit upon
judgment.
Yerkes and Urban *• had 525 reagents (251 young men from 17-23
years of age, and 274 young women from 17-20 years of age) estimate
in seconds four different intervals of time (18, 36, y2, and 108 seconds)
under four varying conditions (idleness, listening to reading, writing,
and estimating by counting or otherwise). The men gave 4014 judg-
ments; the women 4375. When the two sets of judgments were dis-
tributed over the dig^t-scale according to the unit's digit they gave the
*» Chauvenet : A Manual of Spherical and Practical Astronomy. Philadelphia,
1891, vol. II, p. 193.
*• Robert M. Yerkes and F. M. Urban : Time-estimation in its relation to sex,
age, and physiological rhythms. Harvard Psychological Studies, 1906, 2:405-430.
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INFLUENCE OF MENTAL HABIT UPON JUDGMENT
263
distributions shown in Curves A and B, Plate XXVII. Part of the pref-
erence for o and 5, however, was caused by a mental habit of estimating
in simple fractional parts of a minute (15, 30, 45, 60 seconds). After
the influence of this habit was eliminated ^^ the distribution shown in
Curve C was obtained. The deviations in this curve, then, show the in-
IM.
OCCVMPMd ■
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Plate XXVII. — Time and Si>ace Estimations. Distributions showing number-
preference and the "personal scale."
Curve A, Time estimates, men, 4014 judgments. (From Yerkcs and Urban.)
B, " " women, 4375
C " " Corrected Aggregate. " Urban.
£>. Space estimates, Vm millimeter, horizontal 3000 cases. (From Bauch.)
E. " " " " vertical. jooo "
P. " " Via. decimeter, horizontal. 1000 " "
fluence of mental habit in the use of numbers when relatively long inter-
vals of time are estimated.
Michael Bauch** sought experimentally to determine the common
''personal scale" in judgments of divisions of small and large spaces be-
tween calibrations. By exhibiting each division an equal number of
*^ Vide, F. M. Urban : On systematic errors in time-estimation. American
Journal of Psychology, 1907, 18: 189.
^* Bauch : Psychologische Untersuchungen uber Beobachtungsfehler. Port*
schrifte der Psychologic, 1913, i : 169-226.
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264 MENTAL HABIT
times he could eliminate the error due to chance deviation which cer-
tainly is not avoided when the presentation of the various divbions is
left to nature. Grossmann, for example, found/* by the use of Mikro-
skopmikrometertrommeln which permitted the reading of time to a hun-
dredth of a second, that the distribution of 1458 transit-times over the
tenth's digits presented deviations as high as ±8 per 1000; and of 2037
transit-times, as high as ±6.
Bauch presented each division with very accurate apparatus, 300
times, to 10 reagents who made 300 judgments each. Each distribution
included 3000 judgments. Curve D shows the distribution of judgments
of the decimal divisions of a millimeter when the scale was horizontal;
Curve E, when it was vertical. Only two reagents were conmion to the
two sets, and six out of the ten in the latter set were experienced meteor-
ological observers. Curve F gives the distribution of 1000 judgments
by ten other observers upon percentile divisions of a decimeter, ex-
pressed in centimeters and millimeters; the centimeters were disre-
garded in the distribution (only 14 in the aggregate of 1000 judgments
were in error as much as a centimeter).
Whether the millimeter scale is horizontal or vertical the influence
of mental habit in the estimates of decimal parts is present; although
the observers have succeeded in reducing the usual preference for o they
have not succeeded in avoiding a large negative error on 5. And in the
estimates of percentile parts of a decimeter (almost 4 inches) the esti-
mate approaches more nearly a guess and falls more completely tmder
the control of mental habit.
With respect to the ratio of correct judgments, it is interesting to
note that for the horizontal millimeter-scale it was 71%, for the vertical
millimeter-scale, 70.5%, and for the decimeter-scale, only 18% ; and that
in the estimates of the decimal parts of a millimeter the R cases are
higher (in per cent of guesses delivered) upon the 0 and 5 tenths (see
Curves D^ and £1), while in the guessing of the percentile divisions of
a decimeter, they are higher on J, 4, and p (see Curve F^), — ^the milli-
meter numbers least often guessed, — which indicates that for these
values the judgment was more often an estimate; that is, in the course
of judging, the influence of mental habit determined a relatively greater
number of guesses upon the digits 0, 5, 2, and 8, just as it did in the giv-
ing of ages and of students' grades.
The close agreement of Curves C and F, the one resulting from es-
timates of relatively long time, the other from estimates of a relatively
*• Op. cit, p. 151.
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INFLUENCE OF MENTAL HABIT UPON JUDGMENT 265
large space, with Curve C, in Plate XXa, (star magnitudes; Gross-
mann's Observer H.) ; with Curve B, Plate XXI (temperature in Mauri-
tius) ; Curve B (New England rain-fall), Curve E (estimates of age),
Curve F (terms of criminal sentence). Curve G (star-magnitudes), and
Curve H (students' grades), in Plate XXII, as well as with Curve D
(ages of the Latin dead), Plate XXIV, indicates quite clearly that we
have here the typical form of a "personal scale" which results from the
influence of mental habit upon judgment when judgment is delivered
upon such values as permit a fairly wide range of error.
Thus far, the estimates which reveal the influence of the number-
habit were made upon tmknown quantities under such conditions that
they could be expected to approximate more or less closely the objective
values of those quantities. This restriction in the range of error, it
would seem, should limit considerably the influence of number-habits,
unless the very limitation emj^asizes in the mind the tmit marks on the
scale used in making the estimate. Some experimental results are avail-
able for determining the extent of the influence of mental-habit upon
estimates when their approximation to the objective values could not be
expected to be close; i. e,, when the range of error was large. Let us
examine several studies in guessing.
Studies in Guessing.
Professor Dresslar*® examined the returns of a guessing contest
held in a clothing store in Los Angeles, California. A prize of one hun-
dred dollars in gold was to be given to the person or persons who
guessed the number of seeds in an uncut monster squash which was on
exhibition. A guess was made by each one of 7,700 persons. Many of
the guesses were as high as 1,000,000, while several were more than
10,000,000; 6,863 (4,238 made by men, 2,625 by women) fell below
1000, and these were selected for the study.
The prize was divided among three contestants each of whom
guessed 811, declared by the officials to be the true count.
Professor Dresslar said:
It occurred to me that a study of these guesses would reveal some interest-
ing number preferences, if any existed, for the conditions were unusually favor-
able for calling forth naive and spontaneous results, there being no way of ap-
proximating the number of seeds by calculation, and very little or no definite ex-
perience npon which to rely for guidance. It seemed probable, therefore, that
the guesses would cover a wide range, and by reason of this furnish evidence of
M Dresslar: Guessing, as influenced by number preferences. Pop. Set. Mo.,
i8» 54:781-6.
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266
MENTAL HABIT
whatever number preference might exist It is midoubtedly safe to assume, too,
that the guesses made were honest attempts to state as nearly as possible best
judgments under conditions given; but even if some of the guesses were more
or less facetiously made, the data would be equally valuable for the main purpose
in hand.
According to the theory of probability, had there been no preference at all
for certain digits or certain combinations of digits within the limits of the guesses,
one figure would occur about as often as another in units' or tens' place. It was
argued, therefore, that any marked or persistent variation from such regularity
in such a great number of cases would reveal what might be termed an uncon-
scious preference for such ntmibers or digits for these places.*^
If the digits occupying the unit's place, in the respective guesses,
are tabulated over the ten-digit series, we get the distribution shown in
Curve A^ Plate XXVIII; the distribution of the digits occupying the
ten's place is shown in Curve B.
Professor Sanford," suspecting that a thorough study of guessing
might "be expected to throw light upon some of the less obvious, and
X
Plate XXVIII. — Guessing. Curves showing number-preferences.
Curve A. Guessing of seeds in a squash, unit's digit. 6863 cases. (From Dresslar.)
B. " " " ten's " 6863 "
C. " beans " bottle, unit's " 1043 " " Sanford
D. " " " ten's " 1043 "
»i Loc. cit., pp. 781-3.
»• Sanford : On the guessing of numbers.
647-665.
Am. Jr. Psychology, 1903, 14:
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INFLUENCE OF MENTAL HABIT UPON JUDGMENT 267
perhaps unconscious, influences that determine opinion and action" (p.
64S), made a study of the returns of a guessing contest held by a dealer
in photographic supplies, in Worcester, Massachusetts; 2817 guesses
were made by 767 persons on the number of small white beans con-
tained in a 5-pint bottle. The range in the 2,573 guesses of the 651 men
was from 285 to 3,425,602 ; in the 244 guesses of the 1 14 women, from
250 to 2,675,181,756. After the elimination of the frequent guessers
(those who guessed more than five times), and of a few irregular
guesses, there remained, for the purpose of the study, 1043 guesses, with
a range of 285 to 1,000,000, and a median of 7,257. The correct num-
ber of beans was announced to be 8,834. Tabulation of the digits oc-
cupying the unit's place gave the distribution shown in Curve C, Plate
XXVIII; of the digits occup)dng the ten's place gave the distribution
shown in Curve D.
It will be noticed that these curves bear a strong family resemblance
to the curves of Plate XXII,** which exhibit the distributions of esti-
mates of such values as preclude a wide range of error. The round-
number preference is very marked on the 0 abscissa. The preference for
5 is overshadowed by stronger preferences for j or 7. Dresslar deduced
from his study the following preferences, which he suggested may be
widely habitual:
1. For 0 (round numbers).
2. For odd numbers, especially 7.
3. For duplication ; such as TTT-
Sanford tabulated the following preferences :
I. For round numbers.
3. For particularized numbers; as, 7001, 403$ 1/2.
3. For repetitional numbers (Dresslar's duplication).
4. For symmetrical numbers; as, loioi.
5. For serial numbers; as, 1234, 9876, 6783.
6. For particular digits.'*
He pointed out that
. . . Number preferences — so far at least as they can be judged by mass re-
turns— ^are not constant, but vary with the conditions under which the numbers
are used. The odd numbers are preferred in the unit's place in ''guessing con-
tests," but the even (next after the 5's and lo's) in the estimations of ages, and
two years is the most frequent criminal sentence.**
** Supra, p. 353.
** The order of preference, in unit's place, was o, 3, i, 7, 9,' 5, 6, 2, 8, 4.
*« Op. cit., p. 398.
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268 MENTAL HABIT
And he concludes his study with the following summary :
The data presented seem to me to bring out clearly several points with re-
gard to habits in the guessing of numbers, (i) These habits are not fixed and
constant, as seems generally to have been assumed, but vary characteristically with
variations in the conditions under which the guessing is carried out. (2) Two-
thirds of the guessers in the "guessing contest" here studied made use of particu-
larized numbers, showing more or less preference for certain digits, especially in
the unit's place. (3) About one-third guessed round numbers or those adjacent
to them, or numbers showing a repetitional or serial character in the digits chosen.
There was also a slight, but uncertain, indication of a more general tendency to
move, in choosing a series of digits, by short steps along the digit scale. (4) No
evidence was discovered that the guessing habits of women and girls differed from
those of men and boys. (p. 665).
Sanford's conclusion that number-preferences vary with the con-
ditions under which the numbers are used, is important. He was assisted
to this conclusion by a comparison of his results ^rith those of Professor
Minot who collected from 10 persons 8,600 guesses on the first ten num-
bers, o^.
The study made by Professor Minof relates the number-habit
directly to experiments in thought-transference, carried out under the
direction of the Committee of die old American Society for Psychical
Research. The instructions {vide. Proceedings, Series I, i : 15-6) pro-
vided for the guessing of the digits from o to p which were to be entered
on a blank in irregular order ; the guessing to progress in series of ten
in direct and reverse directions over the recorded order. The agent, of
course, who determined the order of the digits, entertained in his mind
the proper digit during the forming of each guess by the percipient. But
the latter, knowing the conditions of the experiment, would have a strong
incentive to distribute his guesses quite evenly over the number series;
any marked deviations, in a considerable number of guesses, would in-
dicate an unconscious influence of number-habit.
Curves A, B, and C in Plate XXIX show the distributions of three
respective percipients who made 1000 guesses each ; and Curve D shows
the distribution of the aggregate of 8600 cases.
It is seen at once that, although there is some individual variation
in number preferences, the type of curve is different from the type dis-
played in all of the preceding plates.
In our own experiments on thought-transference,'* when the card
•^ Minot: The Number-Habit. Proceedings Am. S.P.R,, 1886, Series I,
1:86-95.
w Supra, pp. 48 ff .
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INFLUENCE OF MENTAL HABIT UPON JUDGMENT
269
was drawn by chance and the guesses included the number of spots from
I to 10, the conditions were not so favorable for an equitable distribution
of the guesses over the respective numbers, althou^ the reagent (per-
cipient) knew that in the long run the respective numbers must be drawn
an approximately equal number of times. On the whole the conditions
were not very different from those of the American Committee. Each
reagent made lOO guesses. Curve E gives tile distribution for an agg^-
gate of 10,000 guesses.
180
omevm 1
^ ^^
X \
-^ .
^*"
0
oiai4S6Tafo oiai4S«Tafo
Plate XXIX.— Gtiessing (continued). Curves showing a new type of
Qj^^ "personal scale."
A. Guessing of digits 0-9. Reagent G. B. 1000 cases. (From Minot)
^: " " " G.W.N. 1000 "
C. " " " " C.H.B. 1000 "
^- " " " Aggregate, 10 reagents. 8600 " «
^- " of playing-cards (i-io). 100 reagents. 10,000 "
F. " " lotto-blocks (lOiX)). H. Unit's digite. 1000 **
(Stanford)
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270
MENTAL HABIT
The preferences shown in these curves are for intermediate digits,
and are to this extent controlled by the special conditions of guessing
which encouraged an unconscious tendency to pass more or less irreg-
ularly up and down the scale of digits, accumulating guesses on the in-
termediate digits and relatively ignoring the terminal digits.
The consistency of the curves presented above may be readily ac-
cepted as evidence that their general form is not due to chance deviation.
Were statistical evidence desired, however, it could be readily supplied;
e, g,, in Curve E of Plate XXIX, the number of guesses plotted is 10,000,
Drawing
1009^
879»
7556
2 3
8 9 10
Ouesslng lOOJft
87^
759&
2
5 6
8 9 10
Plate XXX. — Deviations from Probability in the frequency the respective cards
(spots I -10) were drawn and guessed. Showing influence of mental
habit in guessing. 100 Reagents. 10,000 cases.
and the probability is 10%, or 100 per M. From Table XLI " we find that
the limit of chance deviation is 1.3% or 13 per M; any values lying out-
side the field of 87-113 are consequently indicative of extra-chance cause.
These upper and lower limits of chance deviation are shown in the curve,
and four of the ten values are seen to lie definitely beyond these limits,
while four more very closely approach them. This evidence is corrobor-
ated by the excess of deviation in the guessing over the deviation in the
drawing as shown in Plate XXX, which is drawn from the card-guessing
data. The upper curve shows the deviations resulting from drawing the
»• Supra, p. 89.
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INFLUENCE OF MENTAL HABIT UPON JUDGMENT 271
cards by chance from a shuffled pack, and constitutes "empirical prob-
ability."
Distribution of the Number-Habit.
Whether the influence of mental habit upon judgment, as shown in
the curves which have been displayed in the above pages, is shared by
only a relatively few individuals whom the influence dominates to a high
degree, or by the great majority of the persons contributing the data
whom the influence dominates in a lower degree, is a question that may
be inspected a little more narrowly. That the distribution of the number-
habit is fairly general is indicated by several facts already before the
reader: (i) The data contributed by a large number of people (as in
age-returns, students' grades, and the guessing of the number of seeds
in a squash, or of the number of pips on a card) show number-prefer-
ences in large amounts; and (2) the data contributed by individual
scientific men do not fail to show the influence of mental habit. The
results of our experiments in guessing, however, throw some more
definite light on the question.
Individual variation, as has already been observed, must be ex-
pected here. In Plate XXII •• Curves C and D show some individual
variation between two observers in scientific estimates, of the same kind ;
notably, on abscissa 5. In Plate XXIX,*^ Curves A, B, C, and F •* show
individual variation in the number preferences of four reagents in guess-
ing the ten digits. In Curves A, B, and C, 3 is preferred ; in B, C, and
F, 7 ; in ^ and B,6\ in A and F, 2 ; and in B, 5. Since these curves are
based upon 1000 guesses each, the indications of preference just noted
may be regarded as fairly reliable.
In our own card-guessing, since each reagent made but 100 guesses,
the individual curves are not so reliable criteria of individual preferences.
But if they are compared en masse with the corresponding curves of
cards drawn, i. e., the empirical probability curves, the fact of fairly lib-
eral distribution of number-preference may be appreciated by visual in-
spection. Plate XXXI presents in greatly reduced size both classes of
curves for our 100 sets of 100 experiments each. It will be seen that
some of the number preferences (in the lower half of the plate) are suf-
•0 Supra, p. 253.
•1 Supra, p. 269.
*> This curve gives the 1000 guesses of the digit in unit's place made by the
reagent whose mental habit in Lotto-Block-guessing was displayed in Plate II, p.
44. It is not quite comparable with the other curves drawn from the guesses of
only the ten digits.
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MENTAL HABIT
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Plate XXXI. — Frequency of Occurrence of the respective cards (spots i-io) in
sets of 100 experiments, as drawn (upper series) and as guessed (lower series).
Showing distribution of mental habit among the lOO reagents.
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INFLUENCE OF MENTAL HABIT UPON JUDGMENT
273
ficiently great to be recognized and definitely identified; e, g., those
shown in the curves of Reagents 7, 18, 21, 38, 42, 43, 47, 65, (J/, pi, 93,
and p5. In these cases the curves touch or cross the upper enclosing
line, and thus exceed the largest deviations, shown in the curves of drawn
numbers (in the upper half of the plate), namely, 17 and pd. Moreover,
four types of curves may be distinguished : The "U" type, as 21, 67, and
91, showing preferences for the terminal digits i and 10 \ its reverse,
as 5, i3f ^7* ^*» 31, 36^ 41 y 4^f 43* 44* 49* 50, 55* 5^* 5*» 60, 62, 66, 69,
71, 72, 73, and po, showing a general preference for the intermediate
digits ; the much serrated curve, as 2, 27, 34, 48, 52, 57, 74, 87, 88, p3,
P7, TOO, showing two or more strong preferences for digits not grouped
50-
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4
t-
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125456789 10
Plate XXXII.— Number- Preferences.
Curve A, Distribution of the 176 stronger preferences in our card-guessing.
B, " " preferred unit's digits. 469 German reagents.
2346 choices. (From Marbe.)
together ; and the single strong preferences, as 7, 38, and 47, The individ-
ual preference may be for any of the digits ; Reagent pi prefers i; 78, 2;
7* 3; 3^* 4; 21, 5; 42, 6; 82, 7; p5, 8; 28, 9; and 20, 10. If we tab-
ulate the 176 stronger preferences upon the digit series we get the distri-
bution shown by Curve A, Plate XXXII. The excess of preferences for
5 and its neighboring digits is in agreement with the results of an in-
vestigation of number-preference conducted by Karl Marbe,** and shown
^* Marbe : Ueber das Gedankenlesen und die Gleichformis^eit des psychischen
Geschehens. Zeitschrift fur Psychologie, 1910, 56:253-5.
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274 MENTAL HABIT
in Curve B. In Frankfurt 308 school girls (7-17 years of age), and in
Wiirzburg 161 persons (seminary students and soldiers) were required
to write down as quickly as possible any number they pleased (eine
beliebige Zahl) from i to 10, 11 to 20, 21 to 30, 31 to 40, and 41 to 50.
Plate XXXIII. — Distribution of the Number of Times a number was drawn (solid
line) or guessed (broken line) in 100 experiments. The theoretically
probable distribution is shown by the smooth curve.
100 reagents. 1000 cases.
Curve B gives the aggregate distribution for the 2346 choices of the
unit's digit by the 469 reagents.
If we disregard what the particular preferences are and seek to
determine more definitely to what extent they have played a part in the
guessing, we can tabulate the number of times each reagent has guessed
each of the ten digits. If his guessing were distributed evenly, each digit
would be guessed just ten times; if distributed by chance, the deviations
from 10 times would be distributed about 10, in such a way as to con-
form to the empirical distribution (of the drawings) or to the theoretical
distribution; if, however, the nimiber-habit played an appreciable role,
the deviations would be more widely distributed than in either of the
other distributions. If then all of these values, for the 100 reagents, are
aggregated, a definite spread of the distribution beyond the two chance-
distributions would indicate that the guessing of an important part of the
reagents was influenced by the number-habit, since a single reagent con-
tributes but ten values to the aggregate of 1000 values. Plate XXXIII
displays the three distribution-curves. The abscissae (at the bottom of
the plate) denote the number of times a digit (any digit) was guessed
by a reagent (any reagent) in his hundred experiments. The ordinates
(on the left margin) indicate the number of cases (or the frequency) of
the abscissal values. The distribution-curve of the guesses shows a
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INFLUENCE OF MENTAL HABIT UPON JUDGMENT 275
definite spread beyond the chance distribution-curves. There are 15
cases when a digit was not guessed at all in a hundred guesses ; 42 cases
a digit was guessed but 3 times, while chance calls for but 5 or 8 cases ;
48 cases of 4 times, chance calling for but 15 to 22 cases; 42 cases of
17 times, chance calling for but 12 cases; etc., and, to compensate, the
more central values (7-14 times) occur much less frequently than chance
calls for. On the lower (left) side of the curve of guesses there are 152
cases lying outside the range of chance deviation; and on the upper
(right) side, 113; making a total of 265, or 26.5%, of the guesses
definitely controlled by mental habit. The reagents not only preferred
certain niunbers; they avoided or ignored certain niunbers even to a
greater extent. If mental habit influenced guesses of individual reagents
on half of the ten digits, 53% of the reagents would be necessary to con-
tribute 265 cases ; or if on three of the ten digits, 88% of the reagents
would be necessary.
That the proportion of reagents whose guesses were influenced by
mental habit must be large, and also that the respective mental habits
must be largely conmion, may be seen from Plate XXXIV, which gives
the distribution-curves of the "number of times a digit was guessed in
1000 experiments by 10 reagents." Since there were ten groups of 10
40 60 60 70 80 90 100 110 180 180 UO 160 100
Plate XXXIV.— Distribution of the Number of Times a number was drawn (solid
line) or guessed (broken line) in looo experiments by lo reagents.
ID groups of 10 reagents. loo cases.
The probable distribution is shown by the smooth curve.
reagents, each of which contributes lo values, the curves are plotted from
ICO values. The central value is loo times. On the central abscissa,
however, the values of 96-104 are plotted; thus each abscissal value is
the central of ten aggregated inter-class values. The spread of the curve
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276 MENTAL HABIT
of guesses beyond the chance-curves is even more marked than in the
preceding Plate. The number-habit may be regarded as fairly general
among our loo reagents.
Although the number-habit is fairly generally distributed among our
reagents, Plate XXXI •* shows that there were individual differences not
only in the controUing force of the habit but also, as was noted above,
in the preferences; each digit being markedly preferred by some re-
agents, but the intermediate digits being more frequently favored, as
was shown in Plate XXXII. This sort of variation tends to erase indi-
cations of the influence of number-preference when the guesses of all
the reagents on the respective digits are aggregated, consequently the
curves shown in Plates XXIX (Curve E) and XXX, above, do not show
the full force of the influence.
More agreement is found in the habit of neglect which more often
concerns the terminal digits. This trait in guessing, it may be recalled,
was operative in the judgments delivered by our reagents in the experi-
ments on the influence of peripheral subliminal impression, to such a de-
gree that the probability from which significant deviations were sought
had to be revised in accordance with the limitations which 19 reagents
out of 26 had imposed upon themselves.*^
Other Mental Habits.
Our experiments in card-guessing permitted the appearance of other
mental-habits for which we may search in our data. Was preference
shown for color, for suit, or for particular cards ?
Red cards were drawn 4894 times in the 10,000 experiments, and red
Plate XXXV. — Distribution of the Number of Times a red card was drawn (solid
line) or guessed (broken line), in 100 experiments. 100 reagents. 100 cases.
Theoretical probability is represented by the smooth curve.
•* Supra, p. 272
•* Vide, supra, pp. 207 f.
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INFLUENCE OF MENTAL HABIT UPON JUDGMENT
277
cards were guessed 5043 times. This approximation to theoretical prob-
ability (5000) is remarkable, considering that chance permits a deviation
of 2IO.** If there are any individual preferences they are completely
canceled in the aggregated results. That individual preferences were
negligible may be seen from Plate XXXV, in which the distribution-
curve of guesses may be compared with the curves of drawings and of
theoretical probability. Although both empirical curves are much ser-
rated they follow the general course of the theoretical curve. There were
only three cases where red cards were guessed by an individual reagent
over 62 times in his hundred guesses ; and only one case below 35, which,
however, since it is so far below the lower limit of the chance distribu-
tions, indicates a significant avoidance of red cards on the part of one
reagent. But this does not indicate color preference; the reagent (7)
had a preference for Spades and neglected Diamonds, Hearts and Clubs
being guessed equally often.
Plate XXXVI shows the deviations in the drawing and the guessing
of suits, for the aggregated results. Hearts were guessed 2654 times
Drairlng
Ghi^ssing
100^
76J»
1009(
75JS
S
Plate XXXVI. — Deviations from Probability in the frequency the respective
suits were drawn and guessed. 100 reagents. 10,000 cases.
while the most probable number is 2500 times, and Spades were drawn
2660 times. Since chance allows a deviation of i8o,'^ or an aggregate of
2680 times, we have no indication of general suit-preference. A few
individual reagents, however, were subject to mental habit with respect
to suit, as may be seen from Plate XXXVII, which gives the distribu-
'^f.. Table XLI, p. 89.
•T C/., Table XLI, p. 89.
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278 MENTAL HABIT
tions of the number of times a suit (any suit) was guessed, was drawn,
and is to be expected, in a set of lOO experiments. The distribution-
curve of the guesses (broken line) is sensibly lower for the central values
than the chance-curves, and its extreme values extend beyond the chance
limits. There are lo cases where a suit was guessed less than 14 times,
and 5 cases more than 39 times : Two reagents preferred Hearts ; two,
Spades ; and one. Diamonds ; three of these five reagents avoided a suit,
(two. Clubs; one. Diamonds) ; and among the seven remaining reagents
who avoided a suit four avoided Diamonds; two, Clubs; and one,
Plate XXXVII. — Distribution of the Number of Times a suit was drawn (solid
line) or guessed (bn^en line) in 100 experiments. Showing influence
of mental habit. 100 reagents. 400 cases.
Theoretical probability is represented by the smooth curve.
Hearts. Were these few cases to be accepted as indicative of a general
mental habit, one would say that Hearts and Spades are preferred.
Diamonds and Clubs are avoided But such a mental habit is not general ;
it influenced to a definite degree only 12% of our 100 reagents in their
guessing of suit.
Mental habit also influenced the guessing of individual cards ; and
since aggregate guesses upon the individual cards show its influence
clearly, many of the preferences must be common. As may be seen from
Plate XXXVIII, which presents the deviations in both drawing and
guessing from the most probable number (100%), the deviations are
definitely greater in the guessing than in the drawing. Accepting the
latter as empirical probability, deviations greater than 20% of the most
probable number (made on the Five of Hearts) indicate some extra-
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INFLUENCE OF MENTAL HABIT UPON JUDGMENT
279
chance cause. According to Table XLI,** the limit of ch<ince is .66 of
the number of experiments, or 26.4% of the most probable number. It
is certain that the Four and the Five of Hearts have been preferred and
that the Ace of Clubs and the Ten of Spades have been avoided, by
reason of mental habit; and it is more than probable that the general
habit of favoring the intermediate digits and avoiding the terminal digits
has influenced the guessing of the ten cards in each of the four suits,
as may be seen in the approximate conformity of deviations on the ten
cards under the respective suits. Much of the general preference for
particular cards must therefore be attributed to the general preference
for the intermediate digits.
There was, however, some influence of mental habit upon the guess-
ing of particular cards. If we tabulate the number of times each of the
Drawing
ioo%
Gut$9in^
h
I t34S^7B9l9i t S 4- 9 S T • 9/0/£9 4SarS9/0f t 9 4 M 6 T m • f
Plate XXXVIIL— Deviations from Probability in the frequency the respective
individual cards were drawn and guessed. loo reagents. 10,000 cases.
100 reagents guessed each of the forty cards, and aggregate all the
values, we get the distribution shown (by the broken line) in Plate
XXXIX, which also presents the distribution-curves of the drawing
and of theoretical probability. The curve of guesses spreads beyond the
curves of empirical and theoretical probability. About twice as many
•» Supra, p. 89.
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280 MENTAL HABIT
cards were avoided altogether (abscissa o) as chance allows; and many
more cards were guessed over five times in loo guesses than one would
expect by chance. One reagent guessed the Ace of Clubs 17 times and
the Ace of Diamonds 19 times, — ^making over a third of his 100 guesses
on but two of the forty cards ; another guessed the Six of Clubs 19 times
and the Nine of Hearts 11 times; one guessed the Three of Spades 18
times, and another the Four of Spades 15 times. There were twenty-five
cases of guessing a card 10 or more times. Of these, the Ace of
Diamonds, the Three of Spades, and the Six of Clubs were preferred by
three reagents; the Ace of Hearts, the Three of Hearts, the Six of
Diamonds, and the Four of Spades were preferred by two reagents ; the
rest of the preferences were individual cards of all suits. There is almost
no general agreement in the preferences ; but, as may be estimated from
the distribution-curves, the number of guesses controlled by mental habit
.r><r^
2 9 4 5* 6 7 6 9 10 10 11 12 13 M 19 tf 17 18 19 10
Plate XXXIX. — Distribution of the Number of Times an individual card was
drawn (solid line) or guessed (broken line) in lOO experiments.
100 reagents. 4000 cases.
The theoretically probable distribution is shown by the smooth curve.
is so large that almost all of the reagents would be necessary to con-
tribute them. Examination of the tabulations of the guesses of the in-
dividual reagents verifies this deduction. Mental habit was general.
Mental habit also influences the guessing of letters. In some ex-
periments conducted by the writer several years ago with the tachisto-
scope, seven reagents failed to perceive a letter (a consonant) shown
among others and were obliged to guess 380 times. The average number
of guesses per letter would be 18; but Q, W, and Z were not guessed
over 10 times, while R, S, and T were each guessed 28 or 29 times.
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INFLUENCE OF MENTAL HABIT UPON JUDGMENT 281
Each of three of the reagents failed to guess two letters and two avoided
a single letter. Individual preferences here also varied greatly: One
reagent preferred D, one H, one K, one N; two reagents preferred L,
two R, two S, and two T.
A few other mental habits which influence judgment are worthy of
notice here, especially since their operation is clearly unconscious and
involuntary. They are the "constant errors" found, and reckoned with,
in pyschological investigation. We can illustrate them by selecting but
one type of experiment, — ^that of "stimulus comparison." That such
"errors" may have practical importance beyond the psychological lab-
oratory is seen from the early difficulties encountered by the astronomer
when he sought by photometric methods to determine the relative bright-
ness of the stars.** Many observations had to be discarded because it
was found that it makes a difference to the observer whether the image
of the estimated star is to the right or to the left of the image of the
Pole-star. Correction was made by duplicating the observations after the
two images were reversed in their relative positions. This is the so-called
"space-error." When the two stimuli are compared not simultaneously,
but one after the other, there is a corresponding "time-error." Assuming
that the "Method of Right and Wrong Cases, or Constant Differences,"
is employed in stimulus comparison, there will be fewer right judgments
if the norm comes after the variable — this error is called the "general
tendency of judgment." Then, with a given temporal order of norm and
variable, for some observers there will be fewer right judgments when
the norm is greater than the variable, and for others when it is less than
the variable — the so-called influence of "type." ^* Without mentioning an
equal number of the more variable "errors," we may, perhaps, close this
passing reference with the assurance that the reader will appreciate the
fact that these "errors" which tax the ingenuity of the psychologists to
eliminate, are unconscious influences upon judgment.
Explanatory Considerations.
Although it is of but secondary interest to know why we have men-
tal habits after we know that we have them, a brief consideration of some
of their causes may add somewhat to the cogency of the evidence ad-
•» Vide, Annals of the Astronomical Observatory at Harvard College, ii\ 222 \
14:4, 6.
^•For a good illustration of these errors, vide, F. Angell's review of "Ztir
Analyse der Unterschiedsempfindlichkeit von Lillien J. Martin und G. E. Muller,
Leipzig, 1899," in the Am. Jr. Psychology, 1900, 11:266-7.
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282 MENTAL HABIT
duced to establish them, by way of making them more reasonable than
they appear to the layman to be.
Professor Dresslar, in his investigation ^^ with 875 young men and
women who were attending the State Normal schools in preparation for
teaching in the schools of California, conducted for the purpose of learn-
ing the extent of their belief in superstitions, found in the potent super-
stitions connected with numbers so great a preference for the odd num-
bers, particularly 5 and 7, that he was constrained to say :
These figures lead us to expect to find more than 80% of all superstitions,
referring to numbers, making use of 3, 7, 9, or 13. These, then, can with propriety
be designated as the numbers especially appropriated by the mind to express and
embody superstitious notions, (p. 195).
And the original choice of these numbers he ascribes to a natural mental
bias:
The general unconscious preference for odd numbers^* is a mental bias de-
veloped out of conditions imposed upon external nature by the force of gravita-
tion, (p. 304).
In order for a free physical body to maintain a stable position it must
have at least three points of support. In the natural process of de-
ductive reasoning the major and minor premises either hold the judg-
ment in suspense or lead directly to a conclusion (the third component of
the syllogism). The number j becomes a satisfying numerical concept.
Professor Sanf ord says :
An explanation of number-preferences, if one is attempted, must take several
things into account. First and most important of these is that number preferences
— so far at least as they can be judged by mass returns — are not constant, but
vary with the conditions under which the numbers are used. The odd numbers
are preferred in the unit's place in ''guessing contests," but the even (next after
the 5's and lo's) in the estimation of ages, and two years is the most frequent
criminal sentence. Under some conditions the landmarks of the decimal s)rstem (5,
10, 15, 20, etc.) would be prominent; under others those of the duodecimal sys-
tem [e. g., criminal sentences in months].^' . . . Number preferences should be ex-
plained, therefore, in connection with the special circumstances under which they
are exhibited, (p. 398^).
Ti Fletcher B. Dresslar : Superstition and Education. Berkeley (California),
University Press, 1907. (There was full or partial belief in 45% of the 7176
recorded superstitions.)
T2 Vide, Curve A, in Plate XXVIII, supra, p. 266.
^» Vide, Plate XVIII, supra, p. 339.
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INFLUENCE OF MENTAL HABIT UPON JUDGMENT 283
He thinks that number-superstitions do not explain number-preferences
but that both "spring from a similar psychical condition."
There must be something peculiar about a number to which superstition or
symbolic meaning may cling; it must scnnehow stand out in consciousness. The
emphasizing feature may be something in the numerical relations themselves (as
30 is the sum of the first ten numbers of the series, to use one of Dresslar's in-
stances), or it may be some relation in nature, as man's having five fingers on each
hand, or the quarter of the lunar month being seven days, or perhaps some purely
accidental relation — but whatever its nature, it must make the number prominent
in consciousness before it can become a matter of superstitious regard. Now in
such guessing as we have been considering, mere prominence in consciousness, or
mere ease of return to consciousness, for any cause, is sufficient to determine a pre-
ponderant frequency in the guessing. Superstitious importance when once estab-
lished may easily contribute to the prominence of a number, and so increase its
frequency in the records of the guessing, but its influence is indirect and much
modified by other considerations, (p. 399.) . . . All the odd numbers stand out
above the even for purely numerical reasons. They present a certain solidity be-
cause they are not divisible by two, and among the odd numbers 3 and 7 over-top
the rest; for 9 is not prime, 5 is common and easy from its connection with the
decimal system, and i from its simplicity and complete familiarity. To such orig-
inal means of emphasis as this is added the repetition and fixation in attention due
to superstitious or symbolic conceptions, and all combine to determine the other-
wise undetermined digits in the number guessed.^* (pp. 399-400).
Although the stubborn, refractory nature of the prime numbers is
no doubt responsible for the emphasis which they enjoy in the traditional
consciousness, to the individual laboring over his arithmetic they become
discriminated before tradition becomes operative. And the various digits
take upon themselves, in the individual consciousness, varying character-
istics which must be largely determinative in establishing mental habit
with respect to their use.
Some individuals have chromaesthesia, or other s)maesthesias, for
names, letters, and numbers,^' i. e., names, letters, or numbers are seen or
heard as colored, and the affective value of the color would determine
mental habit with respect to them. With respect to names, Professor
Dresslar once asked a subject whether the associated colors influenced
her preference, and received the following reply: "They do. I do not
like those names associated with the reds. I like bluish names . . ." ^*
T* Sanford : On the guessing of numbers. American Journal of Psychology,
1903, 14:383-401.
'• Cf., Galton : Enquiries. 1883, p. 149 ; Titchener : Text -book, p. 195 ;
American Journal of Psychology, 11:377; 18:341.
^•Dresslar: Are Chromaesthesias variable? American Journal of Psychology,
1903, 14:380.
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284 MENTAL HABIT
But since synaesthesia is probably not more common among people than
partial color-blindness, it cannot be a large determinant of number pref-
erences. But, if, as Titchener suspects,^^ synaesthetic experiences are not
to be traced back to associations formed in childhood, but are due to some
anatomical or functional peculiarity of the individual's nervous system,
they are to be noticed as a distinct factor in the determination of mental
habits.
The more frequent determining factors are likely to be the asso-^
ciations built up in the individual's experience. To illustrate, the writer
still has a very definite scale or system of mental attitudes which the
various digits arouse; and these are directly consequent upon the num-
ber-experiences of his childhood: ^, 4, and 8 are relatives, they are kindly
and responsive ; they retain some vestiges of attributes with which they
were once more definitely endowed; they arc republicans, for example,
and church-goers, as the intimate friends of his family were. On the
other hand, j, 6, and p are strangers, somewhat hostile, and troublesome ;
they are democrats, and they run their harvesters on Sunday; but 6
fraternizes with friends and is to be tolerated although the role it plays
in the multiplication table is against it. 5 is a lucky acquaintance that is
too seldom met, and belongs to the family of the tens and hundreds. / is
the Him of the lot ; frustrates almost every enterprise that involves it. /,
also, is individual, is likely, but really doesn't count much. 0 is a quan-
dary; shares a rival claim with i for first place in the series; doesn't
count in addition but has a deadly effect in multiplication. 4 becomes,
distinguished ; it is ^ + ^, ^ X ^, and 2^ ; p stands next in dignity as j*.
/, 5, and 7 have also undergone change owing to associations in addition
to those derived from ease of arithmetical manipulation : / is the symbol
of unity ; it is regal, self-contained, final ; from it all numbers take their
origin, and to it they all, at n®, return. 5 has been advanced by many
triune corporations — ^the Trinity, the triumvirate, the syllogism; by
structural associations — ^the rigidity of the triangle, and of the three tent-
poles ; by social facts — ^the minimum number of branches of a govern-
ment, or of members of a family. 7 has come up through the plagues of
Egypt and the lean years, Jacob's service and Nebuchadnezzar's mad-
ness, Rome's topography and the Wonders of the World, not to speak of
the wise or the blind men, the deadly sins or the ages of man, or the
colors in the spectrum or the notes in the musical scale, a cosmopolitan
and fascinating Othello; and he has through conspiracy with 4 and'
^^ Titchener: A Text-Book of Psythology, 191 1, p. 197.
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INFLUENCE OF MENTAL HABIT UPON JUDGMENT 28S
Juno, effected a perpetual hebdomadal memorial which is published all
over Christendom in the calendar. Thus were the digits first personified,
and later subjected to various influences; preferences can scarcely be ex~
pected to escape the influence of these early associations.
Acquired associations may also determine preferences for letters,
through connection with names, or by reason of aesthetic evaluation of
form; for cards, through value in play. In any case, the associations
are likely to be many, and which one becomes determinative upon any
given occasion depends upon a multitude of factors a discussion of which
would involve one of the most complex chapters in psychology — on the
incentives to, and liability of, reproduction.^* In many cases, owing to
like training, mental habits are similar, and, in guessing, work for coin-
cidence. In general, it has been said, we are mental communists; pre-
occupied upon the same theme, the ideas which arise in the minds of
friends for expression are similar, often identical. It is, of course, owing
to the fact that human minds are similarly constituted that a science of
psychology is possible. It is owing to the same fact that conmiunication
is possible and that language has developed.
Some of the experimental results of the word-reaction test are perti-
nent, in exemplifying psychical communism. Thumb and Marbe have
shown that when a large number of persons make a word-reaction to a
given stimulus- word the responses are very often identical.^* And Rein-
hold has shown that the agreement in responses of school children to
given stimulus-words increases with age or school-grade.** Kent and
RosanoflF, who sought characteristic differences between the responses of
normal persons and the responses of abnormal subjects, gave loo stim-
ulus-words to looo normal persons in order to get normal frequency-
tables of the responses to each word.
The total number of different words elicited in response to any stimulus word
is limited, varying from two hundred and eighty words in response to anger to
seventy-two words in response to needle. Furthermore, for the great majority of
subjects the limits are still narrower; to take a striking instance, in response to
dark eight hundred subjects gave one or another of the following seven words:
light, night, black, color, room, bright, gloomy; while only two hundred gave re-
actions other than these words; and only seventy subjects, out of the total num-
ber of one thousand, gave reactions which were not given by any other subject,
(p. 8 of reprint).
^^Vide, Kiilpe: Outlines of Psychology, 1901, pp. 196 ff.
^» Thumb and Marbe: Experimentelle Untersuchungen uber die psychol-
ogischen Grundlagen der sprachlichen Analogiebildung. Leipzig, 1901, pp. 17 ff.
•0 Ferdinand Reinhold: Beitrage zur Assoziationslehre auf grund von Mass-
cnversuchen. Zeitschrift fur Psychologic, 1910, 54 : 184.
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286 MENTAL HABIT
Their general conclusion was :
On a general survey of the whole mass of material which forms the basis of
the first part of this study, we are led to observe that the one tendency which ap-
pears to be almost universal among normal persons is the tendency to give in re-
sponse to any stimulus word one or another of a small group of common reactions.
(p. 14).
It appears from the pathological material now on hand that this tendency is
greatly weakened in some cases of mental disease. Many patients have given more
than 50 per cent of individual reactions.'^ (p. 14).
This psychical communism, then, develops gradually in the experi-
ence of the child, is a striking characteristic of normal adults, and is im-
paired by certain kinds of mental disease. It molds experience in like
forms, effects common associations, common scales of evaluation, com-
mon preferences ; it explains why mental habits are often conmion. But
the psychical factors upon which mental habit rests are not conununistic ;
they are individual: the material of experience and the incentives to,
and the liability of, its reproduction. This explains the large individual
variation in mental habits. Were reproduction not variable and selec-
tive, with respect to the various materials of experience, mental habit
would not be shown in such judgments as we have examined. Individual
variation in this psychical factor accounts for the individual variation in
the extent to which judgment is influenced by mental habit.
It is, perhaps, reasonable, then, to expect the influence of mental
habit upon all judgments delivered upon matters which permit a fairly
wide range of error (star magnitudes, criminal sentence, age of the
American living or of the Latin dead, students' grades, cloudiness at
Bremen, etc.) and upon matters which permit a still wider range of
error (seeds in an uncut monster sqtiash, or beans in a 5-pint bottle). The
typical "personal scale" of the systematic errors enforced by mental
habit upon judgment of these matters has been found.
Will the same explanation hold for the Squation dicimale, the "per-
sonal scale" found in judgments of the decimal divisions of small tem-
poral and spatial magnitudes? Are the systematic errors in estimating
the tenths of a degree on a thermometer, calibrated for each degree only,
dependent upon nimiber-preference, upon the imequal liability of the va-
rious tenths to come to mind? This sort of influence we have found to
exercise the greater control over judgment in situations which permit the
wider ranges of error ; as in estimating a student's merit in a percentile
grade, which, because the least discriminable values lie about 8% apart,
81 Grace Helen Kent and A. J. Rosanoff : A study of association in insanity.
Am. Jr. of Insanity, 1910, 67 : 37-96, 317-390.
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INFLUENCE OF MENTAL HABIT UPON JUDGMENT 287
permits a "probable error" of ±4%. The estimate is determined by the
greater liability of one of the unit's digits over the neighboring seven
digits to come into consciousness. The decimal divisions of a degree on
the thermometer-scale, however, will not permit so wide a range of error.
And in so far as this range is decreased is the opportimity for number-
preference decreased. The range of the "probable error" in the ther-
mometric observations reported from Dundee (for the distribution see
Plate XXI, Curve Z))" is only .54 of a decimal part of a degree; and
the range on the scale at the calibration upon which the 0 judgments
were made is 1.75 of a decimal part. Lewitzky,** in applying Zinger's
mass correction which he found in high agreement with Gonnessiat's,
to the transit-observations of Boquet's observers,** learned that for some
of the more neglected tenths the systematic error for some of the ob-
servers amounted to a full tenth of a second. Obviously, since the range
of error is not greater than a decimal part, the "personal scale" cannot
be caused by number-preference. A good proof that the large error on
0 is not caused by a preference for a round number lies in the fact that
when instruments are calibrated on decimal parts of a degree those
decimal parts are as often favored as 0 is. Curves D and E, Plate
XXVI," illustrate this with respect to the half-second standard furnished
by clock-strokes; and Curves / and K, in the same Plate, with respect
to the .5*^ calibration on the thermometer. With the ,2^ calibration on
the thermometer we get the distributions shown in Curves A, B, C, and
D, Plate XL.** Again, when the estimates are made in tenths and half-
tenths of spaces on record-sheets (Libellen) the distributions are not es-
sentially different from those of estimations made in tenths only, as may
be seen from Curves E and F which are drawn from data presented by
Meissner.*^ The large positive systematic errors fall upon the calibra-
tions, regardless of what decimal divisions are calibrated, and of whether
the estimations are made in tenths or half-tenths. The fact is that ob-
servers have a "personal scale" which is not imposed upon them by
8* Supra, p. 251.
" Astronomische Nachrichten, 1890, 125:75-6.
«* Vide, Curves A, B, C, Plate XXIV, p. 257.
*^ Supra, p. 261.
^ These distributions are reported by Hellmann (op. cit., p. 286) for Wasser-
leben, Potsdam, Celle, and Pawlowsk. The observations in each case, except for
Celle, cover a period of ten years and number 10,956. For Celle, the period
covered is 20 years, and the observations number 21,912. At this last station the
observations were made by a single observer. At Pawlowsk the observers were
said to be the more skilled.
•T Op. cit., pp. 139-142. Curve E represents 7898 observations made by W. ;
Curve F, 6552 made by K
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288
MENTAL HABIT
number-preference, and which is at variance with the objective scale
which they endeavor to adopt. For the observers on Pikes Peak," for
example, the "personal scale" varies from the objective scale as is shown
below :
Objective Scale o
12 3 4 5 6 7
I I I I I I
8 9
Personal Scale
8
5 4 6 67 8 9
Fig. 4.— A comparison of the objective with the "personal scale" of the
meteorological observers on Pikes Peak. The mid-points
of the 0 divisions are in apposition.
On the decimal divisions of / and 5 only is there no considerable
error. On division 6 only a quarter of the expected number of estimates
have fallen ; on 0, 2.76 times the expected number. The distribution of
ISO.
\* i
OurvM A Md B
A /
A /A /*\ ' /
\ /
100.
■\ /
A // A / \ /
\ /
V
\w VI \v
y'l
•0.
V
0.
Oit84»6r60O Olt84B6^a0O
Plate XL. — Curves showing the Dependence of the 'Equation dicimale' upon cali-
Curve bration-marks, and its independence of fractionation of decimal estimates.
A. .2* Thermometric observations at Wasserleben. 10,956 cases. (Hellman.)
B. " " " " Potsdam. 10,956 "
C. " " " " Celle. 21,912 "
D. " •* " " Pawlowsk. 10,956 "
E. (Libellen) Estimates in tenths and half-tenths. Obs. W. 7^
F. (Libellen) Estimates in tenths and half-tenths. Obs. K. 6552
w Vide, Curve A, Plate XXI, p. 251.
(Meissner.)
if
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INFLUENCE OF MENTAL HABIT UPON JUDGMENT 289
the observations is just such as would be expected had the observers held
the "personal scale" pictured above accurately in mind and employed it
without error.
The causes of this mental habit are probably very complex, and are
not all psychical. Walter *• sought to determine whether it varied with
the distance between the calibrations, and had 500 estimates made from
a recalibrated thermometer, with each of the following distances: 0.8,
1.2, 1.6, 2.0, 2.4, and 2.8 mm. The deviations on the 0 were, per M, 119,
45» 32, 55> 68, 84; and the average deviations: 44.8, 25.7, 26.8, 17.3,
28.3, 28.8. This indicates that the optimal distance between calibrations is
2 mm. ; and that the error in the "personal scale" increases with a de-
parture in either direction from this magnitude. He pointed out that
instrument-makers should be better informed, since they commonly place
calibrations so close together as to preclude reliable reading, sometimes
to the extreme of using a third of the space for calibraticMi-marks. The
calibration-mark in any case occupies a part of the distance which, in
estimating decimal parts, must be considered as unfilled space. The
physical fact of coincidence of the top of the mercury with some level
of the calibration would, consequently, constitute one cause for increas-
ing the frequency of the 0 estimate. One psychical cause acting in con-
junction with this is the well-known tendency to convert "no difference"
into "like" judgments;*® and another is the tendency to underestimate
small magnitudes in comparison with large magnitudes, especially when
they receive a disproportionate degree of attention. To the last cause
Bauch** attributed the piling up of estimates upon the terminal tenths
which he found in his results. Both of these psychological causes would
also operate on the .5 division which can be fairly accurately located.
Four further psychical causes may operate to disturb accuracy in the
locating of the .5 point: (i) If the scale is vertical, owing to a well-
known space illusion, the midpoint is placed too high ; the lower spaces
of sensibly symmetrical letters, to illustrate, are larger than the upper
spaces as may be seen if the letters are inverted — S S, 8 8, (2) If the
scale is horizontal, and monocular vision is used as in transit-estimation,
the external segment is overestimated ; i. e,, with the right eye the right
half is overestimated and the mid-point is located too far to the right.
(3) Whether the scale is vertical or horizontal the half of the space be-
tween calibrations which is intersected by the surface of the mercury is
«» Op, cit., pp. 249 ff.
»0C/., F. Angell: On judgments of "like" in discrimination experiments.
American Journal of Psychology, 1907, 18:253-260.
»i Op. Cit, p. 219.
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290 MENTAL HABIT
likely to be overestimated, since an unfilled space seems less than a filled
or a divided space of the same size.'" And (4) if the mercury-filled part
of the space and the unfilled part differ greatly in shade, as black and
white, the black segment is underestimated. Feet or hands appear smaller
in black than in white. This last source of error was noted by Walter.**
If the .5 is mislocated, the other intermediate divisions are disturbed;
and the same causes of error apply directly to them also. Other psycho-
logical sources of error which would account for individual differences
in the "personal scale" refer to characteristic methods of making the
estimate, and have been noted by the astronomers. Hartmann •* said that
observers differ in making calculation from the first line, from the sec-
ond, or from the estimated middle of the space between them. Gonnes-
siat •* noted that some observers estimate the /, 2, and j decimal divisions
absolutely, without comparison with the complementary spaces. And
Grossmann** contended that proper estimation is not based upon the
image in the eye but upon the sensation of the eye-movement over the
points of reference ; consequently the position of the head is important,
since tortion must be avoided. Imperfections of the eye, such as asym-
metry of the retina, astigmatism, etc., are still further causes of individual
variation. This brief resum^ of some of the causes of the "personal
scale" may, perhaps, suffice to indicate that the process of estimating
decimal parts of small spatial magnitudes is sufficiently complex to per-
mit the operation of many factors of mental habit, without pursuing these
factors ad nauseam.
•* These three causes are due to asymmetry of the eye-muscles. Cf., Wundt :
Human and Animal Psychology, 1912, pp. 156 f; or Grundziige der Ph3r5iologischen
Psychologie, 5te Auflage, ipce, vol. II, pp. 548 S.
•» Op. cit, p. 252.
M Op. cit.
*> Gonnessiat : Recherches sur les erreurs personelles dans les observations de
passages. Bulletin Astronomique, 1889, 6:471-480.
•« Op. cit., pp. 157 flF. Cf., Wundt : Human and Animal Psychology, 1912, p.
151.
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APPLICATION TO THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 291
APPLICATION OF MENTAL HABIT TO EXPERIMENTS IN
THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE.
The recognition of the influence of mental habit upon judgment is
very important for all those who either conduct experiments in thought-
transference or presume to interpret the results of such experiments,
for the reason that, should the conditions of experiment permit it, the
effect of common mental habits constitutes an extra-chance cause which
the quantitative results would not fail to show and which might, conse-
quently, be easily mistaken for thought-transference. The more rigid
the mathematical and statistical treatment of the data, the more deflnitely
would the extra-chance influence be revealed and the more certain would
the error in interpretation be to bear vicious fruit
For example, suppose the German reagents whose number-prefer-
ences are shown in Plate XXXII, Curve B,*' were acting as experiment-
ers, and our own reagents whose number-preferences are shown in Curve
A on the same Plate were doing the guessing, in thought-transference ex-
periments in which the guesses were made on the digits from / to /o,
and the experimenters chose at random the digits to think of. Since
the experimenters think of the intermediate digits much more often than
they think of the others, and the reagents guess much more often those
same digits, it is obvious that R guesses would be more frequent than
chance provides for. This fact is more apparent if we examine an ex-
treme case. Suppose the experimenters had a preference for 5 and
thought of it in one-half of the experiments, and the reagents guessed 5
in one-half of the experiments, then the chance of R guesses on all the
digits would greatly exceed .1, the normal probability of a single coinci-
^ dence ; half of the guesses on 5 would be right, yielding a ratio of .25 R
cases; and % of the remainder would be right, yielding, say, .05 R
cases ; aggregating .3 R cases, an excess of .2 or 20%. And this excess,
indicating an extra-chance cause, results not from thought-transference
but from similarity in mental habit with respect to thinking of digits.
Of course, the influence of similar mental habits is not so extreme as
here considered, but in so far as it is operative it works for R cases. Be-
fore determining the effect of the influence when exerted in the degree
shown in the curves referred to above, it may be well to examine a parallel
case which is perhaps clearer than a thought-transference experiment.
»» Supra, p. Q^z,
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292 MKNTAL HABIT
From it we can derive a formula that will be applicable to the digit-
guessing.
Let us illustrate the mathematical situaticm with the throws of two
dice. If they are perfect homogeneous cubes, each face has an equal
chance with any other of being thrown, and, since there are six faces,
that chance is % of the total nund)er of throws. In the throws of die
a, then, the "probability of occurrence" of the ace is % ; of die b also
%, If dice a and b are thrown together the probability of getting the ace
with both is ^ X ^ or % X % = H6 = -C«78. Should the actual num-
ber of coincidences obtained in a series of throws exceed this ratio by an
amount greater than the deviation allowed by the theory of probability,
an extra-chance cause working for the coincidence of the aces would be
demonstrated. Suppose the dice are "loaded" so that the probability of
occurrence of the ace is greater, say % for each die ; then, the probabil-
ity of coincidence would be )45i ^^d in a series of throws of sufficient
length an extra-chance cause would be demonstrated.
If we are interested in all of the coincidences, as we are in thought-
transference experiments, then the probability of coincidence would be
the sum of the chances for the coincidence of the respective six faces ,'
H6 + y86+ Ho + HeH- H6 + ys6^%6 = y6 =.167. Butifthedice
are similarly loaded so that a long series of throws shows, in per cent, the
following occurrences of the respective faces
Face 1^345^
Die a ID 12 27 6 22 23
** fr 12 13 26 7 21 21
then the probability of coincidence is definitely increased: If the respec-
tive probabilities of the occurrence of the ace with dice a and b may be
represented by ^1 and p^, then ^^ = .10 and p2 = .i2, and the probability
of occurrence of a coincidence of aces is p^^^=.io X .12 = .0120, in-
stead of .0278 ; and of the 3-spot p^p^ = -0702. A summation of the six
piP^ values gives, for all the coincidences, .1965 instead of .167, indicating
a theoretical extra-chance value of .1965 — .167 = .0295, or about 3%.**
This is the effect of the loading of the dice.
••Generalizing, we may derive a formula for determining the theoretical
amount of such an extra«<hance cause resulting from loaded dice, or from the
influence of mental habit in guessing, and dbplaying itself in the unequal chances
of the single events:
in which p^ and p^ are the respective probabilities of the occurrence of a given
event (die-spot / or ^ or 3, etc) in the two series, 2 is the sign of summation,
and p is the probability of occurrence of a single event under the condition that
all the events have equal chances.
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APPUCATION TO THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 293
Recurring to the digit-guessing, we find by the use of the formula
just derived that the theoretical ratio of R guesses would be .115, the
influence of mental habit, consequently, amounting to .115 — .1 = .015 or
1.5%. This illustrates the role that a fairly general mental habit may
play in thought-transference experiments. But we have learned that in-
dividuals vary gjeatly in their digit-preferences, and, consequently, we
might expect in a considerable number of sets of experiments, made
under the conditions assumed above, to find the results of some reagents
indicating a considerable extra-chance cause just because their strong
preferences chanced to agree with those of their experimenters.
For example, we see in the lower part of Plate XXXI •• that Re-
agents p and 44 show some agreement in their number preferences, and
Reagents j5 and 45 also. By the application of our formula we find that
for the former pair the amotmt of influence toward R cases would be
.029, or 3%, and for the latter, .02 or 2%, should these pairs work to-
gether in experiments that permit the mental habits of both members to
operate.
Like preferences for individual cards would in a similar way con-
tribute an extra-chance influence for R cases. For example. Reagents
65 and tf7, in the card-guessing experiments have some strong prefer-
ences in common. Had either of them acted as experimenter and the
other as reagent, and had the card to be thought of been selected at ran-
dom by the experimenter, not drawn from a shuflled pack, the amount
of extra-chance influence as found by application of our formula would
have been .0283 or 2.8%, which is larger than the probability of a single
occurrence of an R case (2.5%).
It must be recognized, then, that whenever the experimenter (agent)
selects' at random one of a definite series of things to think of, instead
of drawing it by chance, the unconscious influence of mental habit may
result in the expression of preferences which, if in agreement with those
of the reagent likewise induced, constitute an extra-chance cause work-
ing for R cases.
Statistical treatment may, indeed, remove the cause by such an ar-
tificial selection of the data as removes the operation of the agent's pref-
erences '^^ but this can be done by a reader only when, as is not usual,
»• Supra, p. 272.
^00 This could be done by counting the R cases in an equal number of guesses
on each of the numbers or cards, care being taken to take every guess on each
number or card from the beginning of the series until the quota is obtained; or,
by dividing the number of R cases on each card guessed by the number of guesses
made on it, reducing to a conunon denominator, and adding.
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294 MENTAL HABIT
the original series of data are published. Obviously the admission of the
influence of mental habit into thought-transference experiments is a seri-
ous error.
But, it is worth noting, while we have a statistical measure of this
extra-chance influence before us, this error is not so great as some critics
intimate. In order for the above deviation of + 2.8% in R cases on the
Card, to be certainly established as an extra-chance cause, the number of
experiments upon which the per cent is based must be about 6oo.^^*
And in order for the 3%, found above as a measure of the influence of
mental habit in digit-guessing, to be satisfactorily demonstrated the num-
ber of experiments would have to be 2000.*®* These figfures serve to
show that even when we select from our data the cases of greatest sim-
ilarity between the mental habits that have influenced the guesses to the
greatest degree, the extra-chance influence is not really large. As an ex-
planation for a large deviation from probability in the results of a long
series of thought-transference experiments — such, for example, as the
Creery experiments (see Appendix C) — it is unsatisfactory.
For a smaller deviation above probability, however, this explanation
may be legitimate, as has proven the case in an interesting investigation
conducted by Professor E. C. Pickering *•• of the Harvard College Ob-
servatory during the early days of the old American Society for Psy-
chical Research. He observed that if thought-transference is, as Richet
suspected, commonly operative to a substantial degree among normal
persons, an important error might be entering the observations of the
star-magnitudes with which the Observatory was just then engaged, in
conjunction with other observatories, in the revision of Argelander's
Durchmusterung. The observer, after familiarizing himself with the
Durchmusterung scale of brightnesses, estimated the brightness of each
star observed. After each estimate, the Durchmusterung magnitude was
read aloud by the recorder, to enable the observer to continually correct
his scale. Since the Duchmustenmg magnitude was commonly in the
recorder's mind while the observer was forming his estimate, there was
the opportunity for the estimate to be supplied by thought-transference
from the mind of the recorder. If this process occurred, there would be
an excess of zero deviations of the estimates from the Durchmusterung
magnitudes. A large number of observations — about 50,000 — of the
stars between +50** and +55^ were at hand for inspection. Of these,
101 Vide, supra. Table XLII, p. 90.
io» Vide, supra. Table XLI, p. 89.
io» Pickering : Possibility of errors in scientific researches, due to thought-
transference. Proceedings Am,S.P,R., 1885, Series I, 1:35-43.
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APPUCATION TO THOUGHT-TIANSFBRENCE
295
7568 observations in o, 6, 12, and 18 hours of right ascension were
deemed sufficient for statistical treatment. There were three observers
(R., 3128; P., 3248; IV., 1 192) and five recorders, which permitted an
analysis of data for testing the results of various pairs of workers. The
deviations of the observations from the Durchmustenmg magnitudes
were tabulated according to size and their distribution was compared
with the theoretical distribution. There was no significant deviation in
the distribution of Observer P. ; but in the distributions of Observers R.
and W. the excess of 0 deviations was conspicuous, as may be seen in
Curves A and B of Plate XLI. (The abscissae give the deviations from
—
• i
\
ft*
m
•
•
Oim*
•
/
\
/
\
/
\
/
\
-1.0 ^
ft a
r
ft a
\
• •0.
ft »!.
0«r««
>
••
M
•
•
•oir..
B
y
/
\
/
\
/
\
/
\
/
\
V
\
s-^
/
f
\
k
Plate XLI.— Frequency curves of deviations of estimates of star magnitudes from,
the Durchmustenmg magnitudes, showing influence of similar mental
habits in excess of coincidence of estimates on o deviation.
Curve A. Deviations of Observer R.
u D ** « « iir
" d " " " R.' Mental habit eliminated
« ry n u u -txr « u u
-i.o to +1.0; the ordinates give, in per cent, the frequency of occurrence.
The smooth curves represent approximate probability.) This would be
excellent evidence for thought-transference, were there no other causes
for this departure from theoretical probability. But, as may be seen
from Plates XX and XXa/^ the Durchmustenmg is influenced by a
^^ Supra, pp. 245 and 246 respectively.
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296 MENTAL HABIT
definite ''personal scale'' which increased the frequency of the estimates
upon the o and 5 decimal magnitudes, and decreased frequency upon the
/, 4, 6, and p tenths, and tabulation of the estimates made by Observers
R. and W, revealed the same "personal scale." Removal of the effect of
the common mental habits, by retabulating an equal number of deviations
of estimates from each of the Durchmusterung magnitudes of 8.3 to 9.2,
reduced the frequency of the 0 deviation in the distributions of both ob-
servers to an amount that falls within the range of chance deviation
(see Curves C and D). Thus a small but significant deviation that at
first appeared to be good evidence for thought-transference turned out
to be the effect of a common Squation dScimale,
Experiments in thought-transference in which such materials as
digits, playing-cards, and estimates of star-magnitudes are used may, in
this way, be vitiated to an appreciable d^^ee by the operation of common
number-preferences, common card-preferences, and a common "personal
scale." But often other materials, not so amenable to statistical treat-
ment, are used in thought-transference experiments for the purpose of
getting results the more striking as coincidence is conceived to be the
more unlikely. Reliance is placed upon an infinitesimal probability. And
here, it may be, mental habit enters with more power to distort the results
because of the fundamental and far-reaching similarity of mental pro-
cesses— because "we are in mental matters all pure communists." *••
Such materials are of the nature of diagrams or drawings, articles of
household or personal use, names of places, persons, or literary or his-
torical characters, dramatic events in history or fiction, etc.
To exclude the error introduced by mental habit it is not sufficient
that the number of things to be thought of by the agent and to be guessed
by the percipient is definitely determined beforehand. Selection of the
individual members of the series during experimentation must be effected
in a mechanical way — ^must be drawn by lot, not merely "chosen at ran-
dom" by voluntary selection. Marbe **• has shown that when groups of
two or three playing-cards are presented to a number of persons, selec-
tions have a strong tendency to agree by reason of the influence of com-
mon preferences, indicating that the preferences operate when one makes
a visual selection as well as when he lets a card come into his mind.
Now, the only series of experiments reported by the American Com-
mittee on Thought-Transference that seems to present fair proof of
*<»• Minot : Proceedings Am. S. P, R, Series I, i : 314.
^^ Karl Marbe : Ueber das Gedankenlesen und die Gleichf ormigkeit des psy-
chischen Gcschehens. Zeitschrift fUr Psychohgie, 1910^ 56:241-251.
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APPUCATION TO THOUGHT-TIANSFERENCE 297
thottgfat-transference was conducted by W. H. Pickering/*" of Boston,
who was a member of the Council of the American Society for Psychical
Research. Of this series the Committee said :
It will be seen that the agent, Mr. William H. Pickering, considers that by
these experiments the reality of thought-transference has been proved as com-
pletely as is possible by a single pair of observers. The Committee regret ex-
tremely that it has been found impossible to repeat these experiments under con-
ditions which would justify them in expressing an (pinion based upon personal
observation of the phenomena.^**
And in the same report :
It will be seen from this report, that some cases have been brought to the
notice of the Committee which seem to indicate that, under certain circumstances,
the transference of a conception of geometric form from one mind to another may
take place without the use of the ordinary channels of sensation. But these cases
are at present merely suggestions for further inquiry. . . .• (pp. 114-5).
The material used, which seemed to offer the best conditions for
thought-transference, consisted of a series of ten geometric diagrams —
a cross, a triangle, a heart, a flag, an anchor, a bell, a star, a circle, a
square, a large S, (illustrated in the Proceedings Am, S. P. R., Scries I,
1 47). In description of his method the agent said:
I had the ten figures before me, drawn on a sheet of paper, and selected them
at random, taking care to have no method in my selection, such as taking alternate
ones or employing other artificial systems. {Op, cit, pp. 114-5).
This is precisely the experimental condition that would permit the
operation of preferences, and should the preferences be strong and iden-
tical in the minds of both agent and percipient the excess of R cases
( 19% ) due to other causes might easily be brought within the range of
chance deviation (9.5%) for the number of experiments made (180).
Since the published data will not permit a statistical correction for mental
habit, the suspension of judgment in the Committee's report is seen to be
justified.
But the agent in his report {op. cit, p. 115) voiced the opinion of
some others engaged in psychical research when he said that he prefers
"free drawings" as material for experiment. ReUance would be placed
upon an infinitesimal probability. Here, however, mental habit may op-
erate to such a degree a& to raise the probability of R cases to a very
substantial figure, — and the situation is calculated to baiBe all statistical
^^Wm. H. Pickering: Experiments on thought-transference. Procegdjngs
Am.S.P.R,, 1886, Series I, 1:113-6.
^^Ibid., p. no.
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298 MENTAL HABIT
calculation, fruitful of controversy without end among those who seek
to interpret the results.
In order to determine the approximate deg^e to which mental habit
operates in thought-transference experiments in which "free drawings"
are used, Professor Minot*^ sent out to members and friends of the
American Society for Psychical Research a large number of blank postal
cards, with the printed request ; "Please draw ten diagrams on this card,
without receiving any suggestion from any other person, and add your
name and address/'
He received for statistical analysis 501 cards, 310 from men, 169
from women, and 22 tmsigned. His first table shows that
There is an enormous preponderance of a few figures, a great preponderance
of some others, and a certain preponderance of still others, (p. 304).
The order of preference was: Circles 287, squares 236, triangles 220;
four-sided figures 245, other straight-sided figures 149, "making of these
very simple figures 1137, or over one-fifth of the total number" (p. 305).
There was less variety among the diagrams of the women than among
those of the men, showing a greater influence of mental habit which
would play a heavier role were the percipient a woman, and a still heavier
one were both agent and percipient women.
[Beyond the diagrams resulting from specially personal preferences, and oc-
cupational preferences, there were "a considerable number" obviously] suggested
by the objects around the persons when they were making the diagrams, or some
association of ideas, or by the recollection of objects or figures with which they
had been specially or even only casually occupied shortly before; but the great
majority are of such a character that we need not hesitate to designate them as
thrown out of the mind, or as elective ... (p. 313). The images and notions
which pass across the consciousness of each individual are almost all common
property. . . . Our thoughts are in large measure owned by the ccnnmunity; we
are in mental matters all pure conununists. . . .
It is evident that if two persons are requested to think of some one thing of
a class, such as a letter of the alphabet, a playing-card, a baptismal name, there is
by no means an equal chance of their selecting any one; on the contrary, there
is not only the probability that they will think of a special one first, but there is
a chance of their both thinking of the same one, for the relative frequency or pre-
ponderance of one idea or image out of a set has been shown to be similar for a
number of people. In order to prove the reality of thought-transference, it must
be demonstrated that the observed coincidence of thoughts can not be explained by
the law of relative frequency.
Let us suppose by way of illustration that two persons make an experiment
in thought-transference with diagrams. The agent draws a circle; now, four per-
^<^Minot: Second report on experimental psychology: — upon the diagram-
tests. Proceedings Am.S.P.R,, 1889, Series I, 1:302-317.
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APPLICATION TO THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 299
sons out of ten are likely to draw a circle, and to draw it near the beginning of a
series of diagrams; instead, therefore, of the chances of the percipient's drawing
a circle being almost infinitely small, they are very great. The trial is proceeded
with ; the circle having been drawn, it is probable that the next figure will be dif-
ferent, as our cards show; the agent draws a square; again the percipient's un-
conscious chances are very great. And so on with a considerable series of dia-
grams. In this manner thought-transference might be simulated, and a proof of its
reality obtained, which would seem overwhelming so long as the law of relative
frequency is disregarded as an explanation, (pp. 314-5).
Professor Minot in the light of his results examined several series
of experiments published by the English Society, including the "free
drawing" experiments of Herr Schmoll **® concerning which that inves-
tigator said :
The results of the preceding trials clearly leave much to be desired; never-
theless, it is not to be denied that in many cases the reproduction possesses the
fundamental character of the original, and, indeed, in many (as, for example, Nos.
3, 8, 12, 13, 18, 21, 24, 25) very strongly approaches precision. In no single case,
strictly speaking, did there appear absolute discrepancy between the form of the
reproduction and that of the original. We have therefore been able to convince
ourselves that the agents, concentrating their looks on the given object, projected
on the mental eye of the percipient a picture more or less resembling it, and we
take it as incontrovertible that the above results could not have been achieved by
conscious or unconscious guessing, (p. 336).
And he (Minot) said:
If we examine the drawings ... we notice at once that ... the figures drawn
by both the agents and percipients are in greater part just such as our diagram-
tests have shown to be the ones likely to be drawn. The authors of the articles
in question having fundamentally misconceived the nature of the chances, of course
fail to offer the necessary proof that the proportion of coincidences was greater
than chance would account for. (p. 315).
He even went further, saying
If Messrs. Blackburn and Smith had observed that there are, say fifty dia-
grams which people are likely to draw, a code could have been easily arranged for
the former to signal to the latter which one or two of the diagrams had been
drawn. If, further, the code include signals for straight lines, for semicircular
curves, for right, left, up and down, or below and above, it would not be very
difficult nor require long for a couple of expert coUusionists to accomplish the
thought-transference of almost any of the diagrams in the series given in the pages
cited. I do not bring any accusation against the two gentlemen who achieved the
remarkable successes reported by the English committee; I merely point out that
the hypothesis of fraud still remains tenable, and that unless it is met adequately,
ii« Anton Schmoll: Experiments in thought-transference. Proceedings S.P.
R., 1887,4:324-336.
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300 MENTAL HABIT
persons of cautious judgment must consider that the explanation of the success of
Mr. Smith in the reproduction of drawings is more probably fraud than super-
sensuous thought-transference.
If this view is adc^ted, the general conclusion is unavoidable that none of
the experiments heretofore published afford conclusive evidence of thought-trans-
ference.111 (p. 316-7).
To this sweeping conclusion there were, of course, vigorous protests^
the justice of which will be presently shown. But Minot made his point.
He showed an important source of error based upon "the relative fre-
quency of ideas," and properly charged the English investigators with
failure upon some occasions to take accotmt of it.
An investigation was soon after made by Lieut.-Colonel G. Le M.
Taylor "* to test Minot's "law of relative frequency." He "prepared 40
sheets of paper by marking off on each side 25 square spaces headed
'Please draw 25 diagrams without receiving suggestions from any person,
one in each of the spaces below, running down each column in succes-
sion, beginning at the top of No. i.' " He numbered the columns from
left to right, and marked the sheets lA, iP, 2A, 2P, etc., so that after
they had been filled out by forty friends they would fall into pairs [as i A
(agent), iP (percipient)] and could be examined for coincidences of
drawings. Altogether there were 2000 diagrams, which would correspond
to 20 experiments in thought-transference of 50 trials each. Upon com-
paring, in pairs, his "agent" papers with his "percipient" papers, he dis-
covered only one absolute correspondence (a square), 10 cases of corre-
spondence in idea, and 9 cases of correspondence in shape. There were
besides "about 40 pairs having some features in conmion, but which are
not similar enough to be counted." He allowed 20 successes for the 1000
trials.
He then turned to two series of results of thought-transference ex-
periments published in the English Proceedings for comparison of the
frequency of coincidence of drawings, and found 13 correspondences in
42 attempts. Unfortunately, the series he selected were performed by
Blackburn and Smith, the coincidences in which Blackburn later claimed
to have been produced by the arts of collusion (see Appendix C).^^'
His reagents, like those of Minot's, showed "a tendency to draw
certain diagrams" but not in the same order of frequency; they had a
1" Cf., Appendix C.
^^2 Taylor: Experimental comparison between chance and thought-transfer-
ence in correspondence of diagrams. Proceedings S.P.R., 1889, 6:398-405.
^^•He included the famous Fig. 22, which we have reproduced in Appen-
dix C
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APPLICATION TO THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 301
preference for men, animals, and flowers rather than for simple geometric
forms ; they too had a partiality for words and letters ; their diagrams,
however, were more complex in character, more varied, less subject to
common mental habits. The differences in the results seem to follow
naturally from the differences in the conditions of experiment. Taylor's
40 friends, although they belonged to a single stratiun of society and
might therefore be expected to express a large number of common pref-
erences, belonged to that stratum of society that, perhaps more than any
other since classical times, cherishes intellectual independence combined
with charm and gjace in personal expression. His request would arouse
a psychical liveliness and piquancy foreign to the 501 New Englanders
who contributed Minot's results. The drawings which Taylor published
give indication of artistic talent and training which one would not expect
to find in a sample of 40 persons among Minot's reagents. Statistically,
also, one would expect to find greater relative variation in the results of
40 persons, than of 501 persons ; and in diagrams drawn to the number
of 25 by each reagent than to the number of 10. The experimental dis-
abilities of Taylor's investigation for testing Minot's "law of relative
frequency," prevent it from casting any discredit whatever upon Minot's
chief contribution.
With respect to Minot's sweeping conclusion affecting all published
thought-transference experiments, there is room for difference of opin-
ion. If one interprets his strictures as applying the error of mental
habit only to those experiments in which the conditions of experiment
would permit it to enter,^^* and other experimental errors equally serious
to the rest of the experiments, he doubtless has to this day 99.9% of the
scientific men of the world with him.
There is, perhaps, not a single series of thought-transference experi-
ments in which "free drawings" were used, or for that matter any other
"free" ideas, which can withstand in a respectable fashion the deadly fire
of the "mental habit" criticism. A few series do, indeed, show so many
correspondences that "mental habit" cannot be an adequate explanation.
But they strongly suggest, by the sort of correspondence, that they are
due to collusion and fraud. Indeed, for some of them, confessions (in
some quarters still discredited) claim as much.
One of the series upon which great reliance has been placed for
proof of telepathy-at-a-distance does not escape:
^^* That this was his own meaning may be seen from an "Open Letter G>n-
ceming Telepathy/' which was a rejoinder to Dr. Hodgson, one of his critics (vide.
Proceedings Am, S, P. R., Series I, i :547 f).
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302 MENTAL HABIT
I am satisfied that in the great majority of cases the coincidences of thought
and expression are sufficiently explained by the natural association of ideas in
minds preoccupied with the same themes. As an illustration of this I think the
experiments of Miss Miles and Miss Ramsden, on which Sir W. F. Barrett lays so
much stress, are of some value; whereas their worth as scientific evidence iof
telepathy-at-a-distance is almost ni/.^^*
One of the protests to Minot's sweeping conclusions was made by
Professor James : ^"
His painstaking study of the diagrams sent in by our associates has given a
more definite numerical form to the already well-known fact that simple geomet-
rical figures, letters, faces, houses, and scrawls are the most likely things both to
be drawn and guessed in thought-transference experiments where improvised draw-
ings are used. But he seems to me greatly to exaggerate the importance of this
diagram-habit when he considers that the absence of special provisions against it
in the English Society's experiments constitutes a very formidable objection to
their value as proofs of thought-transference.
Our readers will not have forgotten that only a small number of the experi-
ments recorded in the English Society's Proceedings were made with diagrams at
all Where diagrams were used, it is true that their elements were almost always
the familiar ones above mentioned. With so few elements a code of signals is
much less difficult than with more; and Dr. Minot consequently infers that where
whole series of diagrams were rightly guessed, this may well have been because
the agent secretly conveyed information to the percipient by such a code.
He grants the applicability of Minot's criticism to experiments in
which "free diagrams" were used except those in which there was
^'wholesale right guessing," for which Minot had suggested code as a
reasonable explanation. Of five specified series he selects as the most
striking the two in which Blackburn and Smith were engaged, scouts
code, and concludes:
I cannot agree, therefore, that the revelation of the diagram-habit has ap-
preciably weakened the evidence for thought-transference actually to be found in
the English Society's reports. To most of that evidence the existence of such a
habit is wholly irrelevant; and where it is pertinent, fraud based on its use seems
so unlikely, if the reports are faithful, that vague suspick>ns of unfaithful reporting
and bad observation seem to me to carry more real skeptical weight with them
than Dr. Minot's more definitely formulated charge, (p. 319).
The definitely formulated charge of fraud has, in the lig^t of later
events, reported in Appendix C, become more plausible.
ii* Tuckett : Psychical researchers and "the will to believe." Bedrock, 1912,
1:201.
**• James: Note to the foregoing report. Proceedings Am.S.P,R., 1889^
Series I, 1:317-9.
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APPLICATION TO THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 303
Another protest was made by Hodgson
.117
I have no desire to underestimate the importance of the considerations de-
pending upon this [number-habit], though the extent of their application is very
small as regards the experiments reported by the English Society, being limited to
a few of the earliest ones. Professor Minot's research has shown how important it
is, in experiments of this kind, to beware that our conclusions are not vitiated by
ignoring the possible existence of certain habits in guessing, whatever be the class
of objects chosen for experiment. And it may be owing to this research that some
later experiments with numbers, recorded not in the Proceedings, but in
"Phantasms of the Living" (Vol. I, p. 34; Vol. II, p. 653), are not open to the
criticism depending on the existence of the number-habit These experiments ap-
pear to have escaped the notice of both Professor Hall and Professor Minot (p.
532).
He quoted from the latter reference :
The ninety numbers which contained two digits were inscribed on ninety slips
of paper, and placed in a bowl. Miss M. Wingfield, sitting six feet behind the per-
cipient, drew a slip at random and fixed her attention on the number which it bore.
Showing that the number-habit of the agent was excluded and that, con-
sequently, the influence of the similar preferences of agent and percipient
could not have been operative. He pointed out that in the experiments
with playing-cards performed with the Creery sisters *^' and reported by
the English Committee, the cards were "drawn at random from a full
pack," Ukewise excluding the operation of the agent's preferences. He
also referred to the imfortunate Blackburn-Smith series, as transcending
in a crucial way the influence of mental habit in "free diagrams."
Dr. Hodgson protested that the error of mental habit can be prop-
erly charged against only a fragment of the English experiments. This
is true, but it applies with most force to the "free diagrams" and the free
ideas, for which investigators of both societies seem to acquire a strong
predilection after they have wrestled with the meagre results contributed
by definite materials which permit accurate statistical calculation.
As to the precautions taken by the English investigators against
"mental habit," there is evidence, in their provision for drawing the
material to think of by lot, that they became aware of the danger near
the beginning of their work. As early as 1884 Gumey, in a review of
Richet's experiments with the divining-rod said:
It may be worth while to remark that either the selection of the particular
hiding-place ought to be settled each time by lot, or the percipient ought to be pre-
1" Hodgson: On some objections to the theory of telepathy. Idem, pp.
528-546.
118 For an evaluation of these series, see Appendix C.
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304 MENTAL HABIT
vented from knowing whether or not his divination has been correct Otherwise
the chances of success may be really affected in the way which M. Richet imagined
in the case of the card-guessing. If we allow the mind of the agent to govern the
selection, then a process in his mind may find its counterpart in the mind of the
percipient****
Mrs. Sidgwick noticed the number-habits of her percipient T., and,
after describing them, said, in a footnote at the end of her report :
It is scarcely necessary to remind our readers that a number-habit affecting
the percipient only can have no tendency to increase the number of successful
guesses.***
In the same number of the Proceedings, Myers, in a review of Max
Dessoir's "Das DoppeUch," discussed quite fully general and idiosyn-
cratic mental habits in their relation to thought-transference experiments,
and, in part, said:
There is no choice, I say, however simple or arbitrary — ^not even the choice
between heads and tails or odd and even — ^which the human mind can be trusted
to make as impartially as the spun penny or the roulette-ball would make it
There will presumably therefore be idiosyncratic number-habits, as well as
general number-habits, and although these are not likely to become strong without
being observed, still less to become so potent as to explain coincidences in double-
numbers thought of by two separate minds, it is undoubtedly proper to eliminate this
possible source of error from experiments in thought-transference. We have made
it a rule, since our first few experiments, to replace numbers in a bag, or cards in
the pack, and shuffle between each trial, and draw at random, (pp. 209-210).
And the subject has since been given special attention in several
places.^*** It is generally agreed that the influence of mental habit oper-
ates to vitiate the evidence for thought-transference only when the agent
selects the material to be guessed and at the same time his mental habits
are similar to those of the percipient; that in all other cases it would
operate to diminish the influence of any other cause besides chance ; and
that its effect is eliminated by preventing the agent from expressing his
preferences, i. e,, by drawing the niunber or card to be thought of by lot.
Although most of the discussion gave almost exclusive consideration
to the case of the influence of mental habit upon the guessing of definite
materials, such as the ten digits, the two-place numbers, or playing-cards,
all the possible occurrences of which are known to the percipient, some
attention has been given to the case of the influence of mental habit upon
the guessing of indefinite materials, such as "free diagrams."
ii««Gumey: M. Richet's recent researches in thought-transference. Pro-
ceedings S,P.R., 1884, 2:245.
^^9 Proceedings S,P.R,, 1889, 6:170.
^»^ Journal S,P.R., 1899. 9: "8-9.
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APPLICATION TO THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 305
Podmorc,"* under the caption "Special Grounds of Caution," dis-
cussing "Thought- forms," in part, said:
There remains one other source of error to be gtiarded against. An image —
whether of an object, diagram, or name — ^which is chosen by the agent may be cor-
rectly described by the percipient simply because their minds are set to move in
the same direction. It must be remembered that, however tmexpected and spon-
taneous they may appear, ideas do not come by chance, but have their origin
mostly in the previous experience of the thinker. Persons living constantly in the
same physical and intellectual environment are apt to present a close similarity in
their ideas. It would not even be prima facie evidence of thought-transference, for
instance, if husband and wife, asked to think of a town or of an acquaintance,
should select the same name. And investigation has shown that our thoughts move
in grooves which are determined for us by causes more deep-seated and more gen-
eral than the accident of particular circumstances. Thus it is found that individ-
uals will show a preference for certain figures or certain numbers over others;
and that the preference for some geometrical figures tends to be tolerably con-
stant ... (p. 15). ... If a diagram [is thought of], it is preferable that it
should be taken at random from a set of previously-prepared drawings, (p. 17).
And a few years later Miss Alice Johnson ^** $aid :
In the early days of the Society, some of the most striking results obtained
were in experiments in which the percipient attempted to reproduce drawings or
diagrams made by the agent. ... (p. 161).
They were criticised on the ground of the familiar fact that the minds of men
have a tendency to run in certain grooves, — so that, for instance, if one is asked
to think of or to draw objects, or to think of playing-cards or ntmibers, each per-
son, though he may not be aware of it, has favourites and is more likely to think
of some objects, cards, or numbers, than others. These mental "habits" as they
are scmietimes called, may be alike in several persons; and when this is so in the
case of two experimenters, a certain proportion of the diagrams drawn by the per-
cipient may resemble those drawn by the agent, and thus simulate the phenomenon
of thought-transference, (p. 162).
In experiments with drawings, where the number of possible drawings is un-
restricted, it is, of course, impossible to calculate how many successes might be
obtained by chance; the question can only be tested empirically, and a very large
number of trials is necessary to ensure a completely satisfactory test. (pp. 162-3).
The unsatisfactory status of the experimental evidence for thought-
transference that is based upon coincidences of "free diagrams" or other
"free" material in an indefinite series, because of the influence of com-
mon mental habits, suggests another sort of evidence adduced for the
proof of thought-transference which is still more unsatisfactory, because
it is vitiated not only by mental habits of various forms but also by all
those factors that work for the fallibility of human testimony.
i«i Podmore : Apparitions and Thought-Transference. London, 1894, PP-
IS-17.
1" Alice Johnson: Coincidences. Proceedings S.P,R,, 1889, 14:158-321.
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306 MENTAL HABIT
Telepathic dreams, hallucinations, and impressions — so-called "spon-
taneous cases" — depend, for their record, upon the memory of persons
who cannot be presumed to have exercised the ordinary care in observa-
tion, in recall, or in report, which is demanded of the conmionest scien-
tific observer. These latter disabilities were suflSdently real to cause nat-
uralists to discount the traveler's tale of "a beast with the tail of a beaver
and the bill and webbed feet of a duck," — ^the omithorhynchus — ^just as
they still discredit the reports of great sea serpents and flying horses.
In all these cases, so long as the alleged facts rest solely on the testimony
of men untrained in habits of close observation and accurate reporting, a suspen-
sion of judgment seems to be justified. And if these considerations are valid in
ordinary cases, a much higher degree of caution may be reasonably demanded of
investigators who leave the neutral ground of the physical sciences to enter upon
a field in which the emotions and sympathies are most keenly engaged, and in which
the incidents narrated may have served to afford support to the dearest hopes and
sanction to the deepest convictions of the narrator. So insidious, in such a case,
is the work of the imagination, so untrustworthy is the memory, so various are
the sources of error in human testimony, that it may be doubted whether we
should be justified in attaching weight to the phenomena of telepathic hallucination
and clairvoyance, to which a large part of this book is devoted, if the alleged ob-
servations were incapable of experimental verification.^**
The statistical advantage of the experimental over the spontaneous
cases has been pointed out by Professor Richet :"■«
I do not think that experiments with diagrams have the same demonstrative
force as experiments with cards, where the chances are exactly knowa
And also by Miss Johnson :^**
... In successful experiments dealing with the events in a chance series
(e, g., experiments in guessing cards or numbers) it is not necessary to allow any-
thing for the action of inference. For this reason, such experiments afford more
satisfactory proof of supernormal power than spontaneous cases. Incidentally, they
possess the further advantage that the degree of probability of success in them is
not a matter that admits of difference of opinion. ... (p. 183).
... In considering events that are causally connected, there always are, from
the nature of the case, rational grounds for inferring from one event something
about another one, and inference is then likely to lead us right oftener than wrong
on the whole, (p. 183).
The causal relations between the events, that for the purpose of sta-
tistical treatment should be independent, may lie in associations which
the persons concerned share in common ; and since there are associations
"• Podmore : Apparitions and Thought-Transference, p. 5.
i*9a Proceedings S.P.R,, 1889, 6:69, footnote.
"* Alice Johnson: Coincidences. Proceedings S,P,R,, 1898, 14:158-321.
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APPLICATION TO THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 307
of all degrees of commonness the range of error due to inference, so far
as persons are ccHicemed, is unrestricted. This sort of error depends
more upon the psychical connections between ideas which determine their
sequence than upon the frequency with which ideas arise in the mind. It is
consequent upon the facts that human experience is integrated and that it
is communistic. The word-reaction experiment provides a typical illus-
tration of both the extent and the force of this influence. As was shown
some pages above,*** the responses of looo normal persons to the stim-
ulus-word needle were all comprised in 72 words, and the responses of
800 persons to the stimulus-word dark were all comprised in 7 words. A
modification of the word-reaction toward the form of a "chain of ideas"
illustrates the manner in which the suggestive force of many conunon as-
sociations may be convei^ed into determining power. Last semester the
writer by way of demonstration conducted a class-exerdse in which he
pronotmced three links of a chain of ideas, each member of the class being
required to record inmiediately three further ideas. It had been ex-
plained with the assistance of an illustration that the ideas recorded should
be the first successive three that came to mind after the writer's third
was given. The stimulus-ideas were, Lafayette, Delaware, cherry tree.
The number of students who responded was 160.
For the 4th idea, 93 gave Washington, 18 gave hatchet,
" " 5th " 33 " hatchet, 13 " Washington,
" " 6th " 17 " /♦>, 13 " Father,
TABLE LXXIX.
No. of No. of Responses Comprised No. of Words used ^u^^:^JLIa!^^''^L
Idea in 2 words in 10 words in all responses ^^o responded with
riist. associations
4th III 135 35 149
5th 46 90 66 133
6th 30 66 89 128
Now, it must have been from five to fifteen years since these stu-
dents learned the legend of the cherry tree and the hatchet, and most of
them may not have recalled it for several years, but their responses were
quite definitely controlled by the force of its associations, 93 responses
for the 4th place being comprised in a single word, 11 1 in 2 words, 135 in
10 words, and all in 35 words, and 149 of the students responding with
historical associations. And, as Table LXXIX above shows, the deter-
mining force of the assodaticHis continues, though in diminishing degree,
in the successive responses.
^» Supra, p. ais.
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308 MENTAL HABIT
In the use of "free" materials of indefinite number, in thought-trans-
ference experiments, and in ''spontaneous cases'' of telepathy, coinci-
dences, instead of being infinitely improbable as the infinite number of
possible alternatives would seem to indicate, must, because of the suggest-
ive force of common environment and common associations, be highly
probable.
The case for thought-transference will have to rest upon experi-
mental evidence derived from the use of definite materials drawn by the
agent by lot. In our own experiments this requirement has always been
fulfilled.
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APPUCATION TO SUBLIMINAL IMPRESSION 309
APPLICATION OF MENTAL HABIT TO OUR EXPERIMENTS
ON SUBLIMINAL IMPRESSION.
Since our determination of the influence of subliminal sensory im-
pression upon judgment rested upon a statistical evaluation of R cases
in the guessing of letters and digits, it is of interest to learn whether
any serious error has been admitted by reason of mental habit, which we
now know constantly influences judgment.
In the experiments on Subliminal Impression,^*^ it will be recalled,
letters or digits were presented by means of a tachistoscope under such
conditions as to make the character jtist not perceptible. The charac-
ters were presented in an order determined by chance (slightly modified
so that the characters were presented equally often), and had all of the
characters (letters or digits) been presented, there would have been no
opportunity for mental habit to contribute to R cases. In the first series
of the first two divisions, however, only part of the characters were pre-
sented, and should the mental habits of the reagents have expressed them-
selves in preferences for the characters which were chosen for presenta-
tion, just to that extent would they have contributed to R cases.
I. Let us examine first the 1527 guesses of letters and digits made
in the experiments of 191 5-16 and tabulated in Table LXII."^ The
characters presented were B, H, K, U, Z, 2, 4, 5, 7, 9; but the reagents
were not told that there was any restriction of the alphabetic or numer-
ical series, were asked to guess any letter or any digit — ^the first one that
came to their minds, — ^and were expected to distribute their guesses im-
partially over the combined series. The probability of R guesses is %^
or 2.8%.
The following is a distribution of their guesses :
ABCDEPGH IJKLMNOPQR
24 113 51 23 17 17 54 72 n 9 53 SO 59 26 55 61 12 57
S T U V
38 25 30 4
Although individual reagents had strong preferences for individual
characters, as. A, B, G, H, M, R, Z, 3, and 8, and curiously limited their
guesses often to less than half of the combined series, they showed com-
»^ Vide, supra, pp. 190 flF.
**^ Supra, p. 193.
W X Y Z
0123436789
II ID 5 132
0 7 39 46 71 62 66 72 84 61
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310 MENTAL HABIT
mon preferences in their aggregate results for B, H, Z, 4, 6, ^, and 8, —
most of the characters chosen for presentation. Of course, some of the
excess of guesses upon these characters is due to the direct influence of
subliminal impressions resulting in R cases, and some of it, as has been
suggested,*** may be due to a mental disposition effected by the sublim-
inal impressions which expresses itself in increasing the frequency of
guesses on the exhibited characters ; but both of these effects would be
indistinguishable from the effect of mental habit, and for statistical pur-
poses we may assume here that it is wholly the effect of mental habit.
If we aggregate the guesses of the presented characters we get 705
or 46.2%. The most probable per cent is 27.8, which leaves an excess of
184%, owing, as we assume, to the influence of mental habit.*** Since
there are 10 presented characters, this excess should contribute 1.8% R
cases. The R cases, as shown in Table LXII, were 9.8%. The remain-
ing 8%, less the 2.8% due to chance, (5.2%), is still 2.9 times the limit
of chance deviation, and represents the effect of subliminal impression or
any other extra-chance causes that could have been operative. No seri-
ous error has entered this series by reason of mental habit ; we are not
sure that it has contributed to R cases at all, but it may have contributed
as much as 1.2% allowii^ for the other extra-chance causes.
2. The guessing of digits presented to peripheral vision also per-
mitted the entrance of mental habit as an extra-chance cause of R cases.
A letter and a digit were presented simultaneously — ^the letter in f oveal
vision, the digit in peripheral vision — ^and after the reagent recorded the
letter irom direct perception he guessed a digit. The digits 2, 4, 5, 7,
and p only were presented. In the experiments of Section I the reagent
did not know that any digits were being presented and was expectd to
distribute his guesses impartially over the digit-series from 0 to p. The
probability of an R guess by chance is 10%. The results were tabulated
in Table LXVIII.***
As was noticed in the discussion of the results,*** mental habits in
number-guessing might have contributed to R cases by narrowing the
range of digits used in guessing, and, consequently, increasing the chances
for R cases. Tabulations of the digits guessed by the individual re-
agents were made, and it was found that "but 7 reagents out of the 26
**• Vide, supra, p. aoi.
^^ It indades also the per cent of R cases due to subliminal impression. But
since the per cent of R cases due to mental habit would be less than 0.8 too great,
for the sake of simplicity this ftict may be disregarded
^•^Supra,p. ao7.
»w Supra, p. ao7.
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APPLICATION TO SUBLIMINAL IMPRESSION 311
were free from those self-imposed limitations." A correction of the
probability of occurrence was applied to each reagent's results, in ac-
cordance with the range of his guesses, and the revised results were put
in Table LXIX."»
This correction, however, did not take account of number-prefer-
ences within the range of guessing, and it may fairly be asked whether
a common number-habit is not responsible for the significant excess of
R cases.
It has been shown ^** that when a considerable number of reagents
guess the digits in the digit-series, or the number of spots on playing-
cards, their aggregate guesses reveal an excess of guesses on the inter-
mediate digits.
Professor Minot, upon the basis of a study of 8600 guesses, said :
Calculating from our data, if 10,000 single digits be written down in random
order, but with the general intention of putting each digit down the same number
of times, we should expect [distribution A, in Table LXXX].i»*
Our 10,000 cases of the guessing of spots on playing-cards, by nor-
mal reagents, are shown in distribution B,
TABLE LXXX.
Digit 123436/890
A 854 103.8 1 12.0 1094 1 10.3 108.5 98.8 94.5 92.6 83.3
B 79.3 100.9 m-5 114^ i^-S 110.2 104.3 ^-8 88.0 82.0
Avg. &14 1024 1 1 1.8 1 1 1.8 1 15.6 1094 101.6 91.7 90.3 82.7
On the basis of the number-habits common to no persons, shown
in the Avg. above, we may expect, in 1000 guesses of digits, an agg^-
gate of 521.7 (52%) upon the digits presented in our tachistoscopic ex-
periments. The most probable per cent is 50, which leaves as the in-
fluence of a common number-habit 2%. Since there were five presented
digits, one-fifth of these would contribute R cases, making 0.4% R cases.
This contribution by mental habit, in comparison with the excess of
5.44% R cases shown in Table LXVIII, is negligible.
In the other principal series of tachistoscopic experiments, in which
the reagents limited their range of guessing to the characters presented,
there was no opportunity for the mental habits of the reagents to disturb
the chance occurrence of R cases.
!•« Supra, p. 208.
^•* Supra, pp. 269-270; also Curves D and E in Plate XXIX, p. 269, and Plate
XXX, p. 270.
^•* Proceedings Am.S.P,R., 1886, Series I, 1:93.
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The theory of probabilities is at bottom only common
sense reduced to calculus. . . . — ^Laplace: A Philosophical
Essay oa Probabilities. New York, 1902, p. ig6.
The doctrine of chances, in fact, is at the bottom of all
scientific argument. . . . — Psc^issqr Charles Richet,
Paris, Proceedings S.P.R., 1889, 6:67.
Psychical Research must ... be made a questicm of
statistics if further conclusions are to be based on the re-
sults.— NoRTHCOiE W. THOiiAs: Thought-Transference.
London, 1905, pp. 176-7.
31a
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INDUCTIVE PROBABILITY.
When the writer worked out the conditions for the experiments on
thought-transference some four years ago he provided for "control" (Card
not Imaged) experiments which would occur at random and, so far as
chance would allow, would be equal in number to the regular (Card
Imaged) experiments, in order that he might have an empirical or In-
ductive Probability with which to compare the results of the regular ex-
periments.**" His casual acquaintance with the large deviations in the
chance occurrence of events, in a short series of trials, from the probabil-
ity of a single event, led him to view with distrust the application of
theoretical probability. His experience, however, in the last few years,
in inspecting and interpreting the experimental results in sets of trials
both large and small, has removed his doubt entirely, and has substan-
tially increased his appreciation of the value, to scientific research, of the
mathematics based upon the theory of probability.***
Instead, then, of essaying an elaborate and detailed exposition of the
lawlessness of empirical deviations from theoretical values, calculated to
justify a plea for the use of empirical or inductive probability, the writer
shall content himself with portraying some of the evidence which has
grown out of his work which justifies at once his faith in the use of
theoretical probability and his conviction that here lies a means so safe
and sure for proving the supernormal capacities of thought-transference,
iw Vide, supra, pp. 35, So, 147-
^** The general reader may be referred to the Encyclopaedia Britannica for
an excellent exposition of the theory by F. Y. Edgeworth; it will be found under
the title of "Law of Error" in the Tenth Edition, vol XXVIII, or of "Probability"
in the Eleventh Edition, vol. XXII. The reader with some training in mathematics
may be referred, for the development of the theory, to "A History of the Mathe-
matical Theory of Probability " Cambridge and London : Macmillan and G>., 1865,
by I. Todhtinter. There he will find the development of the formulae bearing the
names of Bernoulli^ Poisson, and Bayes, which we have ventured to appropriate
[supra, pp. 80 ff.] ; the more pertinent Articles being 993-997 (pp. 548-558), in the
chapter on Laplace. Concerning Laplace's development of "Bernoulli's Theorem"
to the form which we have used [supra, p. 80], Todhunter said (pp. 553-3) : 'The
result which has just been obtained is one of the most important in the whole range
of our subject There are two points to be noticed with respect to the result In the
first place, it is obvious that supposing y to be constant we may by sufficiently in-
creasing fi render the limits p-L and p^L as dose as we please, while the correspond-
313
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314 INDUCTIVE PROBABILITY
lucidity (clairvoyance), or communication from discamate personalities
who can become aware of anything that occurs in our world, that by its
persistent use the controversies concerning these alleged phenomena must
ultimately give way to universal agreement.
Empirical and Theoretical Distributions.
Let us consider some of the correspondences between our inductive
and the theoretical probability. And we may as well begin with the dis-
tributions of R cases. If the R cases resulting from chance are distrib-
uted about the most probable number in accordance with the theoretical
law of chances, then they may safely be predicted from theoretical prob-
abiUty."^
In Plates V (supra, p. 99), VI (p. 99), VII (p. loi), and VIII (p.
102), in which the distributions of R cases on the Card, G)lor, Number,
and Suit, respectively, in the guessing of playing cards when the cards
were not imaged by the experimenter (agent), are represented in solid
curves, we may see that although, owing to the relatively small number
of cases plotted (100), the curves are irregular and serrated, they follow
the general course of the light curve representing theoretical probability,
just as the curves representing the distributions of R cases in the "Card
Imaged" experiments do. The modes (the abscissae of greatest fre-
quency) and the limits of the curves agree very well. The "Card not
Imaged" curves fit the theoretical curves as well as do the "Card Imaged"
curves, and for the latter the "closeness of fit" was calculated from
ing probability is always greater than *(y). [Vide, supra, p. 81, bottom of footnote
147 for the value of this expression]. In the second place, it is known that the
value of *(y) approaches very near to unity for even moderate values of y'
Y *(y)
.5 .5204999
1.0 .8427008
1.5 .9661052
2.0 .9953223
2.5 .9995930
3.0 .9999779.''
For the use of other statistical formulae, based upon the theory of probability, and
for their vindication by empirical results, the reader may be referred to "An Intro-
duction to the Theory of Statistics/' London: Griffin and Co., 1916, by G. Udny
Yule (especially Chapters XIII, XIV and XV) ; and to the first two chapters of
Vol. I in "The Chances of Death," by Karl Pearson, London : Arnold, 1897.
^•^The theoretical distributions have been derived by the use of formulae
given in footnotes 166 and 167, pp. 95-6, supra.
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EMPntlCAL AND THEORETICAL DISTRIBUTIONS 315
Pearson's formula *" and presented at the bottom of page io8, s^pra,
Of looo such distributions we should expect a fit as close as that shown
in Plate V in 169 cases, in Plate VI in 84 cases, in Plate VII in 760 cases,
and in Plate VIII in 274 cases.
In some of the distributions shown in our study of mental habit the
empirical probability curves follow the theoretical curve very closely
compared with the deviations of the curves representing the "Card
Imaged" experiments, caused by the influence of mental habit upon guess-
ing. This may be seen in Plate XXXIII, (p. 274), which gives the dis-
tributions "of the number of times a number was drawn or guessed in
100 experiments" in card-guessing; in Plate XXXIV (p. 275) which
presents the same data in sets of 1000; and in Plate XXXIX (p. 280),
which presents analogous data concerning the occurrence of the individ-
ual card. In other distributions, Plate XXXV (p. 276), showing the data
of the occurrence of a red card, and Plate XXX VI I (p. 278), showing
the data of the occurrence of an individual suit, neither of the empirical
curves departs significantly from the theoretical curve.
For a significant deviation, for which the "closeness of fit" was cal-
culated, the reader is referred to Plate XI (p. iii) which compares the
distribution of R cases on the "Card," expected by the reagents after
their experiments had been finished, with the theoretical distribution.
The "closeness of fit" was A = 11.66 {vide, p. no, supra) and the prob-
ability of its occurrence by chance was found to be about twice in one
septillion sets of 5200 guesses each. Suppose the distribution here com-
pared with the theoretical distribution had been a distribution of R cases
actually made in the card-guessing rather than of the number of R cases
expected by the reagents, could its remarkable deviation be accepted as
proof of an extra-chance cause? This query may well occur to the mind
of the reader who recalls the quotation we have made from Venn *•• or
who takes theoretical probability at its word and reflects that since this
deviation must occur by chance twice in one septillion times, this might
be one of those times. We might grant, on the basis of theory, that this
is indeed the case; that the one highly improbable deviation proves
nothing; and that for the purpose of proving an extra-chance cause we
must have a plurality of highly improbable deviations. But, theoretically,
no matter how large our accumulation of such deviations, there is still
iss Since the A formula was misprinted in footnote 179, p. no, supra, it is
given here: A«='^2— , in which ft^ is the difference between the theoretical fre-
quency (y) and the observed frequency (/) of each respective class in the distri-
bution, and 2 is the sign of summation. The probability (P) of A is found from
the formula correctly given in another footnote on p. no.
!»• Supra, p. 149, footnote 229.
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316 INDUCTIVE PSOBABIUTY
the necessity in a total of cases expressed by a number of a yet higher
order that it must occur by chance. We therefore prefer to insist that
since our quest is for relative knowledge, not absolute knowledge, im*
probability of an event is an index of the degree to which, on the basis of
theory, we may disregard chance as the cause of that event; and for
practical purposes, we may fall back upon experience to justify this
course. We assert then, our readiness to accept the one highly improb-
able deviation from theoretical distribution as "significant," and two or
more of them as clinching the matter.**® Although the ouija board has
been credited with dictating some remarkable poetry and repartee,*** the
necessary reproduction, according to Venn, of one of the plays of Shake-
speare or of Milton's "Paradise Lost" or indeed of any other of the in-
finite number of written and unwritten literary masterpieces, has not yet
i^<>Venn had something to say on both the improbability of the occurrences
he suggested in the quotation above referred to, and the objection that any such
occurrence may be the one the laws of chance provide for :
Concerning the production of Milton's "Paradise Lost" by recording the let-
ters drawn by chance from a bag, he said:
"It would take more days than we have space in this volume to represent in
figures, to make tolerably certain of obtaining the former of these works (Milton's
'Paradise Lost') by thus drawing letters out of a bag . . ." (op, cit., p. 353). And
in a footnote on the same page :
Assuming that there are "about 350,000 letters in the work in question, since
any of the 26 letters of the alphabet may be drawn each time, the possible number
of combinations would be 26^^^; a number which, as may easily be inferred
from a table of logarithms, would demand for its expression nearly 500,000 figures.
. . . Unity divided by this number would represent the chance ..." P =0.1495,247
zeros] 12; the printing of which would require a book of about one and a half
times the size of "Paradise Lost."
And concerning the objection :
"The most seductive form in which the difficulty about the occurrence of very
rare events generally presents itself is probably this.
" 'You admit (some persons will be disposed to say) that such an event may
sometimes happen; nay, that it does sometimes happen in the infinite course of
time. How then am I to know that this occasion is not one of these possible oc-
currences?' To this, one answer only can be given,— the same which must alwasrs
be given where statistics and probability are concerned,— The present tnay be such
an occasion, but it is inconceivably unlikely that it should be one. Amongst count-
less billions of times in which you, and such as you, urge this, one person only will
be justified : and it is not likely that you are that one, or that this is that occasion.' "'
(p. 357).
The case of what has been called the "infinitesimal probability," which applies
to a single simple event, must be reserved for separate mention. (Vide, pp. 346 ff.
infra).
^*^Cf. Patience Worth; a psychic mystery, by Casper S. Yost. New York:
Holt, 1916.
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EMPIRICAL AND THEORETICAL DISTRIBUTIONS
317
occurred; and it may be recalled that on page 83, supra, we intimated
that scientific proof is satisfied if P = 0.9999779, when absolute certainty
requires P = i, which permits a negligible margin of two cases by chance
in 100,000.
When the probability of a single occurrence is moderate (say from
.01 to .5), experience teaches us that the distribution of R cases due to
chance does follow the law of chances ; that almost all of the R cases are
contained within Yule's practical limit of ^ ± 3a, and that practically all of
them are contained within the scientifically satisfactory limit of ^ ± L.^**
If we tabulate, from Table XIII (pp. 56-62, supra), the aggregate
of the R cases made by each reagent on the "Card," in both the "Card not
Imaged" and the "Card Imaged" experiments (as, Reagent, /, 7; ^, 3; J,
4; etc.) in the form of a distribution, we shall have, on the assumption
that chance was not disturbed in the "Card Imaged" experiments, an em-
pirical chance distribution in which there are 100 cases, p = .025, and the
number of experiments in a set is 100. It may be compared with a dis-
tribution made up of the successive terms in the expansion of the bino-
Plate XLII.— Distributions of R Cases in Card-Guessing
109 Reagents.
On Card, ^n= 2.5 ^ = .025
On Color, M = So. ^ = -5
On Number, ^» = 10. ^ = .1
On Suit, ^n = 25. p = .25
Sets of 100.
Curve A,
" B.
" C.
" D.
i"For the value of the latter limit, vide, supra, pp. 82-5; and of the former,
the footnote on p. 86, supra.
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318 INDUCTIVE PROBABILITY
mial icx) (q -^py^. It is represented by Curve A, in Plate XLII, and the
theoretical distribution is represented by the superposed smooth curve.
In like manner we may compare the distribution of the R cases, in
sets of loo, on Color, Number and Suit, shown in Curves B, C, and D,
with their theoretical curves.^**
From visual inspection we can see that there is a general correspond-
ence between the empirical and their theoretical curves. We may also
note that the empirical distributions in Curves B and D fall below the 30
limit (represented by the light vertical line) ; that in the skewed curves,
A and B, they extend a short distance above the 3a limit ; and that all of
them fall below the limit L (represented by the heavier vertical line).
By calculation we can give all these facts in arithmetical values :
TABLE LXXXI.
R Cases in Card-Guessing.
100 sets; 100 guesses each.
Card Color Number Suit
1. «(^+3<») 7^ 65. 19. 38.
2. Largest value 9. 64. 20. 37.
3. nip-^-L) 9.13 71.2 22.7 434
4. A 4.1 2.66 3.8 2.IT
5. P 0.077 0.716 0.165 0.819
By comparing line 2, which gives the largest value in the empirical
distributions, with the line above it, the exact numerical relations between
the limit of the empirical distributions and the 30 limit may be seen ; with
the line next below it, the L limit. Line 4 gives the Pearsonian value
of the "closeness of fit," and line J gives the probability that the emfMrical
distributions are chance distributions; e.g., in 1000 such distributions,
we should expect 77 chance distributions of R cases, on the Card, 716 on
the Color, 165 on the Number and 819 on the Suit, to deviate farther
from the probability curve than these do. All of these empirical distri-
butions, then, may be taken as good examples of chance distributions —
they conform to the theoretical law of chances.
Let us examine some other empirical distributions that are available
for our inspection, and in order that we may see that the serrated aspect
of our empirical curves in Plates VI-VIII (pp. 99 if., supra) has not been
caused by some veiled extra-chance cause, let us first examine the curves
!*• These curves, however, are smoothed somewhat by aggregating the cases
on equal inter-classes; e.g., on Color, the cases on each successive three variates
are aggregated, those on 49, 50, and 51 being plotted on abscissa 50; on 52, 53, and
54, being plotted on 53; etc The values in the theoretical curves were found in
the same way.
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EMPIRICAL AND THEORETICAL DISTRIBUTIONS
319
in Plate XLIII. Curve A represents the occurrences of the odd numbers
in the casting of a die in loo sets of loo trials each, distributed upon each
successive variate corresponding to the respective terms in the binomial
100(9+/^) '**•.* Curve C represents the occurrences of white balls in loo
sets of ICO drawings from an urn containing an equal number of black
and white balls,"* distributed in the same way. Both curves show the
serrated aspect common to our former curves, and for the same reason :
Plate XLIII. — Distributions of the occurrences of Odd Die-spots, and of
White Balls drawn from an urn containing an equal number of
black and white balls. lOO sets of lOO cases each, p = .5.
Curve A, Odd die-faces, plotted on the single terms in the series.
" B, " " " " " central of three successive terms.
" C. White balls, " " ** single terms in the series.
" D. " " " " " central of three successive terms.
a distribution of a relatively small ntmiber of cases over a large number
of abscissae. The curves follow in a general way the course of the super-
posed theoretical curves*
Curves B and D represent the distributions of the same data, respec-
tively, over successive inter-class values, each composed of three suc-
cessive variates, or terms in the binomial series. The relations between
the empirical distributions and the theoretical distribution are there more
apparent The ''closeness of fit" we calculate to be
Curve S, A = 4.30
Curve D, A « 2.36
P = xm62
P = .67Q5
* These die-casts were made in our 10,000 experiments in card-guessing.
*♦* H. Westergaard : Die Grundzuge der Thcorie der Statistik. Jena, 1890,
p. 23 ; quoted by Yule : An Introduction to the Theory of Statistics. 3d ed.. Loo-
don, 1916, p. 274.
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320 INDUCTIVE PROBABILITY
In io,ocx> distributions of an equal number of chance events we may ex-
pect 462 to deviate further from the theoretical curve than curve B does,
and 6705 to deviate further than Curve D. It is possible that some even
faces of the die were discarded by experimenters who were impatient to
have "Card Imaged" experiments, which would introduce an extra-chance
cause calculated to shift Curve B toward the higher variates as it may be
seen to be. But if this occurred, the disturbance of chance was so sUght
that it cannot be positively identified. One might suspect from the sub-
mode on abscissa 44 that some experimenters discarded odd faces ; and
that the effect of these two opposing influences is shown by the cleft in
the center of the curve. But when a distribution contains only 100 cases,
and there are nine or ten abscissae over which to plot them, the curves
may be expected to be irregular. A cleft in the middle of the distribu-
tion-curve is also seen in Curve A on Plate XLIV which shows the dis-
tribution of the occurrences of a red card in 100 sets of 100 drawings
Plate XLIV. — Distributions of the occurrences of a Red Card in drawings from
a shuffled pack, and in Guesses of reagents, p = .5.
Curve A. 100 sets of 100 Drawings each (Stanford)
" B. 100 " " 100 Guesses
" C. 1000 " " 10 Drawings " (Charlier)
each. Since the cards were drawn from shuffled packs containing an
equal number of black and red cards, and since no motive on the part of
the experimenter can be assigned for discarding any drawn card because
of its color, this cleft in the center of the curve must be regarded as ac-
cidental, as a chance variation.
If the reader examines the formulae for the "closeness of fit" and its
probability, he learns that they take account of the number of cases in-
cluded in the distribution. The same fact is illustrated in Plate XLIV.
All of the empirical curves on the Plate "fit" their theoretical curves
about equally well, although Curve C lies much closer than the others to
the theoretical curve. In Curve C there are 1000 cases, while in Curves
A and B there are but 100 cases. In estimating the degree of congruence
between an empirical and its theoretical distribution-curve, the eye can-
not be trusted unless the distributions compared include an equal number
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EMPIRICAL AND THEORETICAL DISTRIBUTIONS 321
of cases distributed over about the same number of abscissae. The
^'closeness of fit" and probability, for each, are
Curve A, li = 3.07, P = 4908
Curve B, A = 3.14, P = .4574
Curve C, A = 3.04, P = .5234
This is a medium fit; about half of the chance distributions of similar
Jdnds may be expected to fit as close, and half no closer.
Theoretically a run of lOO red cards could take place, so that in the
curve one case would be plotted on abscissa lOO, or the run might be on
black cards, giving one set in which there were 0 red cards. The chance
of this occurrence is (J^)^®^ (or, o.[30 zeros] 789), but it did not take
place in any of our sets, just as it has not taken place in any reported re-
sults an)rwhere. The largest number of red cards or of black cards in
any set of lOO drawings has not exceeded our scientific limit L (71.2),
and very seldom exceeds Yule's practical limit of 3a (65).
Not all distributions are capable of admitting an exceedingly im-
probable event, however. Curve C is limited, theoretically, at abscissae
0 and 10, since the cards were drawn in sets of 10. That all the drawings
in a set will be red has a probability of (.5)***, or 0.0009766; that is, the
occurrence may be expected once in 1024 sets and the same chance holds
for a set completely black. Hence in 1024 sets one would expect two of
the extreme values. Charlier in his 1000 sets (Curve C) drew no set of
all red cards but he drew three sets of 0 red cards. The chance for a set
of / red card or p red cards is 10 in 1024. In Curve C the ordinate value
on / is 10, and on p is 9. In this type of curve, then, which does not ad-
mit extremely improbable events, we find the least probable events occur-
ring about as often as the theory of chances calls for.
In Plate XLV we present six curves, all but one of which (Curve
B) have, like Curve C, in Plate XLIV, for their limits only moderately
improbable events. The upper row shows the results of dice-throwing;
the lower, of the drawing of balls in small sets of varying sizes. In
Curve A "» the value of /> was % ; in Curve B,^*« % ; in Curve C,^*^
H ; in curves D, E and F/" %• This variation in the value of p extends
!*• A Stanford student, Miss Gwendoline Smith, made 1000 throws of two
dice, and counted the sixes in each throw. There were only three alternatives : 0,
I, or 2 sixes.
i*«W. F. R. Weldon (Encyclopaedia Britannica, eleventh edition, vol. XXII,
p. 400) made 4096 throws of twelve dice, and counted the sixes in each throw.
1*7 G. U. Yule (An Introduction to the Theory of Statistics, 3d ed., p. 259)
made 648 throws of three dice, counting both the fives and the sixes in each throw.
i«8 Quetelet (quoted by Yule : ibid., p. 274) drew balls from a bag attaining
an equal number of black and white balls, returning each ball before drawing an-
other. Curves D, E, and F give the distributions of the number of white balls
drawn in sets of 5, 6, and 7 drawings.
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322
INDUCTIVE PROBABILITY
the range of chance events which we may inspect for concordance be-
tween empirical and theoretical probability. In Plate XLII, it is true, p
varied, but the events in the distributions might not be regarded as so
t}^ical of chance occurrences as the events in Plates XLIII, XLIV, and
(Weldon)
(Yule)
(Quetdct)
Plate XLV. — Distributions of "chance" events in the throwing of Dice,
or drawing of Balb from a bag.
1000 Throws of 2 Dice, ^ = V« (Miss Smith)
4096 " " 12 " ^ = V.
648 " " 3 " ^ = ^
819 Sets " 5 Balls, ^ ■= ji
683 " " 6 " p-=-H
58s " " 7 " p^}i
XLV ; and in the former two p = .5. The variation in the size of the
sets is also desirable since it extends still further the range of chance
events which we may inspect for concordances.
The "closeness of fit" and its probability, for each of the curves are
given below :
Curve A,
" B.
" C.
" D.
" E.
" F.
Curve
A
P
A
0.35S
.99998
B
240
.6777
C
1.98
.8660
D
1.94
.8781
E
2.76
.7508
F
2.72
.4956
The fits are close. In 10,000 chance distributions such as that in Curve
F we may expect 4956 curves to fit the probability curve less well ; and
in 100,000 such as that in Curve A, only two to fit as well.
In Curve B there was the possibility of a value on abscissa I^ ; i. e.,
of a set of 12 dice throwing I2 sixes. The probability of the event is
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EMPIRICAL AND THEORETICAL DISTRIBUTIONS 323
(%)"» or about 0.000,000,000,46; i. e., in about a himdred billion sets wc
could expect a throw of 12 sixes to occur 46 times. There were 4096
throws and this improbable event did not occur once; nor was there a
throw of // sixes, or of 10 sixes, or of p sixes. The highest number of
sixes thrown was 8, and although the probability is .56 that in 4096
throws of 12 dice 8 sixes will occur, it occurred only once, in close con-
formance with the theory of chances. There mig^t have been no great
surprise had p sixes been thrown, since its probability for the given num-
ber of throws is .052, and could be expected in five out of a hundred such
series of throws.
In Curve A, the least probable event was 2 sixes in a throw of two
dice. Its probability is (%)*, or .0278, and could be expected to occur 28
times in 1000 throws. It did occur just 28 times.
In Curve C, the least probable event was the throwing of 3 fives and
sixes. Its probability is (%)•, or .038, and could be expected 24 times in
648 throws. It occurred 30 times, only a fourth more often than the num-
ber expected.
In Curve D, the least probable event was the drawing of 5 white
balls or of 0 white balls, in a set of five drawings. In 819 sets it could
be expected to occur 25.5 times ; 5 white balls occurred 27 times ; and 0
white balls occurred 30 times.
In Curve E, 0 white balls or 6 white balls could be expected to occur
10.6 times in 683 sets ; 0 white balls occurred 17 times, and 6 white balls
occurred 8 times. In Curve F, 0 white balls or 7 white balls could be ex-
pected to occur 4.6 times in 585 sets ; 0 white balls occurred 9 times, and
7 white balls occurred 4 times.
The tossing of coins is probably the most satisfactory means of pro-
curing events by chance, because coins are less likely to be subject
to extra-chance influences such as the possible differences in surfaces on
balls of different colors which might cause the balls of one color to be
less slippery to grasp than those of the other color, or the lack of homo-
geneity in the material of a die or its deviation in form from a perfect
cube or the shifting of its center of gravity from the center of the cube
by reason of the material milled out of its surface for the spots on the
sides bearing the higher numbers. Consequently, some of the students in
the writer's class in elementary statistical methods during the past year
tossed coins, as well as dice, to procure series of chance events with which
to work.
The results of three of these series are presented in Curves A, B, and
C in Plate XLVI. The value of p is .5 throughout, and the number of
throws in each series was 1000. But for Curve A 4 pennies were thrown
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324
INDUCTIVE PROBABIUTY
at a time;^** for Curve B, 5 pennies; and for Curve C, 6 miscellaneous
coins. A glance by an experienced eye is sufficient to identify Curve A
as the only normal curve of the three. This judgment becomes more evi-
Plate XLVI.— Distributions of "chance" events in Coin-Tossing, p =* .5.
Curve A, 1000 Throws of 4 pennies, (Miss Sudden)
" B, 1000 " " 5 " (a student)
" C. 1000 " "6 " (a student)
" D. 1000 " "6 Indian pennies, (Calvin (3Iay Coover)
" £. 1000 " "6 Lincohi " (J. E. Coover)
dent if the Curves D and E are included in the comparison, each from
1000 throws of 6 pennies. The "closeness of fit" and its probability fol-
low:
Curve
A
P
A
1.53
.8880
B
ii.i
.oo(^oo(vxx>,ooo,ooo,ooo,oo(^oo5>355
C
10.3
D (Indian)
0.97
•9965
B (Lincoln)
24)
.3867
With respect to the least probable events admissible by the curves,
in Curve A, either 0 or ^ heads could be expected in 62.5 sets ; 0 heads
occurred 60 times, and 4 heads occurred 62 times. In Curves C, D, and
E, 0 or 6 heads could be expected 15.6 times ; in D, 0 occurred 18 times ;
6 occurred 17 times ; in E, 0 occurred 12 times, and 6 occurred 20 times ;
but in Curve C, 0 occurred 49 times, and 6 occurred 38 times !
^^*This series was obtained by Miss Anita Sudden, who, like the others,
counted the number of "heads" in each throw.
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EMPIRICAL AND THEORETICAL DISTRIBUTIONS 325
It was the shift of this curve toward the lower variates that sug-
gested to the writer the testing of the new Lincohi penny for bias. Ex-
amination of the coin seemed to indicate that "taik" was delScient in
metal. He accordingly made the looo throws of 6 Lincoln pennies,
counted the heads in each throw and obtained Curve E. For a control
series a like number of throws was made with the old "Indian" penny,
which seems quite S3mmietrical, obtaining Curve D}^^ Curve E is also
shifted somewhat toward the lower variates and thus encourages further
trials which we intend to make for the sake of illustrating the sufficiency
of our method for identif)dng a slight extra-chance cause quite as much
as for settling the matter, yet the amount of shifting is not sufficient to
explain the greater shifting of Curve C ; besides, it was later determined
that not Lincoln pennies, but miscellaneous coins, had been used. The
excess in the frequency of the least probable events in the latter curve
suggests that the extra-chance cause demonstrated by the value of P
above lies in faulty perception, — incomplete enumeration of heads in gen-
eral, especially when only one or two heads had been thrown, leading to
an excess of o heads ; and the same oversight with respect to one or two
tails, leading to an excess of 6 heads.
A like explanation will not apply to Curve B, however. A portion
of the series must certainly have been supplied by good intentions in lieu
of coin-tossing. Its deficiency in "closeness of fit" might be expected to
be equaled by chance in 70 million years if all the inhabitants of the
earth (assuming the population to be maintained at 2 billion persons)
worked 24 hours per day, throwing five pennies at the rate of a throw
every 10 seconds.^'*
But not all the evidence for extra-chance cause in empirical "chance"
results can be credited to inexpert performers. And so well have the
*»<>Thc writer is indebted to his wife and his little son, Calvin Clay Coover,
for this set. It furnished them an evening diversion for several weeks. But that
the counting of heads and the recording were painstakingly done the curve itself
bears witness.
i«iTo the consternation of the reader who is just now ready to insist that
here is a case of the extremely improbable event actually happening, it may be re-
marked that the author of this distribution had the misfortune, during the pre-
ceding year, to be called up before the Women's Council and to be the occasion
of diplomatic correspondence between the officials on student affairs. The Curve
supplies a neat verification of the dictum pronounced by Frederick W. H. Myers :
"There is no choice, I say, however simple or arbitrary— not even the choice
between heads and tails or odd and even— which the human mind can be trusted to
make as impartially as the spun penny or the roulette-ball would make it." {Journal
5*. P. i?., 1899,9:118-9).
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326 INDUCTIVE PROBABILITY
laws of chance been established in experience that that evidence is rec-
ognized and employed in the most authoritative quarters. Curves A and
B in Plate XLVII present such evidence.
Curve A shows the distribution of occurrence of fours, fives, and
sixes in 4096 throws of twelve dice :"• and Curve B the like occurrences
in 6500 throws of twelve dice.*** Both curves are seen to be shifted to-
ward the higher variates, and owing to the large number of cases plotted
Plate XLVII. — Distributions of "chance" events showing bias in Dice.
4's, 5*s, and 6's counted, p = .5.
Curve A, 4096 Throws of 12 Dice (W. F. R. Weldon)
" B. 6500 " " 12 " (A. D. Darbishire)
the curves compare in symmetry very favorably with the theoretical
curve. The "closeness of fit" and its probability are found to be
Curve A, A = 5.88 P = .00055
Curve S, A = 6.14 P = .00018
These are the only distributions of a large number of throws of twelve
dice, the three higher mmibers of which were counted as successes, that
have come to the notice of the writer. That they should agree so closely
in their deviations from probability strengthens the evidence which each
individually presents that an extra-chance cause is responsible for those
deviations. Counting the probability of an average "closeness of fit"
P = .5, the probability of these two fits combined is 2 X .00055 X .00018
= .000,000,198, which indicates that we could expect only about two such
pairs of curves in ten million pairs.
With respect to the frequency of the most improbable events in the
distributions, either 0 successes or i^ successes could be expected in
Curve A to occur once in 4096 throws of twelve dice ; neither, however,
occurred. One success or // successes could be expected 12 times; /
occurred 7 times and // occurred 11 times. In Curve B, 0 successes or
i^ successes could be expected to occur 1.6 times ; o occurred i time, and
12 occurred 3 times ; while / or // could be expected 19 times, i occurred
i»*Made by W. F. R. Weldon (Encyclopaedia Britannica, eleventh edition,
yd XXII, p. 394; or Yule: op. cit., p. 258).
««Made by A. D. Darbishire (Yule: op. cit, p. 274).
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EMPIRICAL AND THEORETICAL DISTRIBUTIONS 327
14 times and // occurred 21 times. The relation of the complete distri-
bution to Yule's 3a limit for throws of twelve dice may be seen from the
vertical line on 11.2. Thus, although these curves show a slight bias in
the dice, owing without doubt to the disproportionate loss of material in
the cotmtersinking for the spots on the faces bearing four, five, and six
spots, they support the evidence already adduced to show that in fre-
quency distributions the occurrence of the more improbable or highly im-
probable events conforms very closely to the theoretical law of chances.
In our treatment of the correspondence between empirical and the-
oretical central measures we shall find this evidence in the distributions
supported.
Wherever we see empirical distributions of chance events compared
with theoretical distributions, whatever the value of p or the size of the
set in which the occurrences are counted, we find that there is a corre-
spondence between the distributions and that the greater the number of
events in the series the closer is the correspondence, just as is to be ex-
pected on the basis of theory. Karl Pearson*** has published four remark-
able distribution curves which together with our curves illustrate this lat-
ter fact, since they are based upon still greater ntmibers. The first shows
the occurrence of red counters in a set of 10 drawings from a bag con-
taining 25 counters each of red, black, yellow, and green; 9148 sets,
p = .25. The second shows the occurrence of hearts in 10 cards drawn
at once from a full pack; 18,600 drawings, p = .25. Both of these
curves are skewed curves, since the mean number of successes would be a
fourth of ten, or 2.5, and while the lowest number of successes possible
was but 2.5 below the mean, the highest number possible was 7.5 above
it ; and both conform so closely to their theoretical curves that to be dis-
tinguished from them they had to be represented by a line of dashes be-
tween which appeared regularly the dots representing the theoretical
curve. The third curve shows the occurrence of fives and sixes in 26,306
throws of 12 dice, (p = %) ; it shows on the intermediate variates a
slight shifting in conformance with our curves, but owing to the large
number of throws plotted it makes a remarkable display of the corre-
spondence of fact to theory. Concerning it Pearson said :
We see that the two lines are in very close agreement.*** We may therefore
conclude that all the combinations mathematically possible in tossing 12 dice to-
gether do actually occur in their due proportions when we throw 12 dice several
154 Pearson: The Chances of Death. London, 1897, vol. I, p. 13.
iM"Not such close agreement as occurs in the case of card-drawing and
coin-tossing, for dice are never theoretically perfect, and a persistent bias has been
observed in them." (Pearson: op. cit., p. 12).
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IMDUCnVB PIOBABILITY
thousamd times. This it not a result which we have any right to assume before-
hand; that the mathematically possible actually does occur in experiment b demon-
strated and can only be demonstrated by actual experience, (pp. 12-3).
The fourth curve shows the occurrence of '"heads" in 2048 tosses of
10 shillings (p = %); and its agreement is also remarkable.
After exhibiting these curves, Pearson said :
When we take a large number of experiments, we see that, however unable
we may be to predict the result of a single trial, the frequencies of many trials dis-
tribute themselves round the mode in a perfectly orderly manner, and that the law
of distribution is precisely that which we obtain by considering all the combinations
which might possibly occur.
It is not theory, but actual statistical experience, which forces us to the con-
clusion that, however little we know of what will happen in the individual in-
stance, yet the frequency of a large number of instances is distributed round the
mode in a manner more and more smooth and uniform the greater the number of
individual instances. When this distribution round the mode does not take place-
as, for example, at Monte Carlo— 4hen we assert that some cause other than chance
is at work. (pp. 14-15)-
We close our illustrations of frequency distributions with Plate
XLVIII, which presents in the heavy curve the frequency of runs in
Plate XLVIII.— Runs in Monte C:ario
Roulette (heavy line), in G)in-Toss-
ing (dotted line), and to be expected
by chance (light line). (Karl Pear-
son).
Fig. 5. The arrangement of the 37 com-
partments in a Monte Carlo Roulette
Wheel The black compartments arc
partly filled in ; the red are left open ;
zero is green. (After Pearson).
8178 throws of the roulette ball at Monte Carlo ; in dotted line, the runs
in a like number of tosses of a coin ; and in light line, the number of runs
to be expected by chance. A run is a permanence in color (in roulette)
or in "heads" or "taib" (in coin-tossing) in successive throws; e.g.,
with H for heads and T for tails, a sequence of HTH is a run of i fol-
lowed by a run of I (two intermittences) ; HTT is an intermittence fol-
lowed by a run of 2 ; THHHHH is an intermittence followed by a run
of 5.
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EMPIRICAL AND THEORETICAL DISTRIBUTIONS 329
Now the roulette is a cylinder containing 37 compartments arranged
as is shown in Fig. 5.
This is spun by the croupier, and while it is still rotating a ball is projected
in the opposite direction to the rotation on a circular path above the cylinder, and
sloping towards its center; from this path the ball ultimately rolls off into one of
the 37 compartments. The apparatus is supposed to be made with extreme accuracy,
and to be readjusted with the greatest care before the table is used. Admitting
the mechanical accuracy of the instrument, and remembering the keen and watch-
ful eyes of the numerous players, it is difficult to conceive a machine better cal-
culated to illustrate the laws of chance than a Monte Carlo rouiette.^^
To it Professor Pearson accordingly turned for illustrative material
for popular lectures on the laws of chance :
In my enthusiasm Monte Carlo appeared to me in a new light ; it was clearly
a scientific laboratory preparing material for the natural philosopher. How to ob-.
tain this material in a workable form was the next problem. To spend several
months at Monte Carlo recording the spin of the roulette was personally an im-
possibility, nor did it seem likely that the Royal Society or the British Association
would award a grant to pay the expenses of an agent engaged in such a novel form
of scientific investigation. Luckily, however, further inquiry led to the discovery
that the records of the tables are published in a special journal entitled Le Monaco,
and issued weekly in Paris at the price of a franc
He tabulated the 16,500 throws for four weeks in July and August,
1892, and had another similar amount tabulated for him, making 33,000
"chance" events. He first determined the relative occurrence of red and
black, which we reserve for later treatment ; then he determined the fre-
quency with which the several numbers occurred, his further considera-
tion of which we shall presently quote, and said :
At this result I felt somewhat taken aback. I did not immediately assume
that the laws of chance did not apply to Monte Carlo roulette, but I considered
myself very unfortunate to have hit upon a month of roulette which was so im-
probable in its characteristics that it would only occur, on the average, once in
167,000 years of continuous roulette-playing. Such were clearly not the most suit-
able returns for illustrating the laws of chancel (pp. 52-3).
Not wishing to put aside as useless my very improbable month's returns I
determined to treat them in another manner; namely, to investigate how closely
the runs, that is, successions of numbers, of the same color, were in accord with
theory, (p. 53).
The values obtained are shown in the above curve as far as a nm of
8 colors. The standard deviation (0) was calculated for each run and
with it were compared the deviations of the empirical from the theoretical
loe Pearson : The scientific aspect of Monte Carlo roulette, in 'The Chances
of Death," vol. I, p. 47.
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3
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330 INDUCTIVE PROBABIUTY
frequencies. The runs in a control series of coin-tossing, obtained by
Mr. Griffith, were similarly treated. The results follow :
TABLE LXXXII.
Runs / 2 3 4 5 ^ 7 S 9
o ^ 28 22 16 12,8 6 4 3
Roulette 325 123 201 47 i 14 10 13 4
Coin-tossing 68 8 45 22 11 3 7 i 4 i 2 o
Professor Pearson observed :
Whenever an actual deviation reaches three to four times the standard devia-
tion, we are approaching the very ini|>robable. [Our limit L, it will be remembered,
is 4.24 X a]. In the case of the tossing, the actual deviation is slightly over twice
the standard deviation on two occasions [on runs i and 3] ; in the case of the roulette,
on one occasion the actual deviation is nearly ten times the standard deviation, cm
another occasion nine times the standard, on a third occasion four times, and twice
it is three times it. The odds are thousand millions to one against such a deviation
as nine or ten times the standard.^*'' If Monte Carlo roulette had gone on since
the beginning of geologic time on this earth, we should not have expected such an
occurrence as this fortnight's play to have occurred once on the supposition that the
game is one of chance. My doubts as to the applicability of theory to predict the
averages in Monte Carlo roulette were now fairly aroused, but I determined to get,
if possible, independent confirmation of my results. My pupil, Mr. L. Giblin, tab-
ulated for me the runs of a second fortnight's play, with the result that his fort-
night was so improbable that it was only to be expected once in 5000 years of con-
tinuous roulette. Nothing like as bad a fortnight as mine, but quite inconsistent
with a reasonable man's applying the laws of chance to Monte Carlo roulette.
Finally, Mr. de Whalley investigated 7976 throws of the ball, forming a fortnight's
play at a slightly later date than my returns. There resulted deviations 4.63, 4.62,
and 444 times the standard deviation, or odds of upwards of 263,000 to i against
such a result. That one such fortnight of runs should have occurred in the year
i8g2 might be looked upon as a veritable miracle ; that three should have occurred
is absolutely conclusive. Roulette as played at Monte Carlo is not a scientific game
of chance.
Such results as those published in Le Monaco give the deathblow to the
mathematician's theory of the random spinning of a mechanically accurate roulette.
The man of science may proudly predict the results of tossing halfpence, but the
Monte Carlo roulette confounds his theories and mocks at his laws !
It remains, if possible, to localize the exact points in which Monte Carlo
roulette rebels against theory. Mr. de Whalley has kindly tabulated for me the
runs of odd and even numbers in 4052 throws, with the result that the actual devia-
tion is on only one occasion larger, and then only very slightly larger, than the
standard. Thus we see that the totals of red and black and the succession of odd
iBT"Xhe odds against a deviation even six times the standard deviation are
more than a thousand million to one !"
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EMPIRICAL AND THEORETICAL DISTRIBUTIONS 331
and even numbers, are obedient to the laws of chance; the special numbers them-
selves arc in all probability occasionally very chaotic; the succession of reds and
blacks, however, sets the laws of chance at defiance in the most persistent and re-
markable manner.
The abnormal character of these results may be clearly summed up in the
words, "superabundance of intermittences and deficiency of small permanences."
Short runs are deficient, and the color changes much more frequently than the laws
of chance prescribe, (pp. 54-7).
In the tabulation of the occurrences of the respective roulette num-
bers in 16,563 trials Professor Pearson found that:
The deviations from the average in the distribution of the individual numbers
are less than we should expect. There is a tendency to come nearer the average
than the laws of chance would allow of ; the totals, to be paradoxical, are too near
the most probable result to be themselves scientifically probable. . . . The reader
cannot be too often reminded that what is popularly termed "chance" may be chaos
or it may be design, but it cannot be scientifically chance unless the improbable hap-
pens in its due proportions.^^^ The absence of the improbable, the redundancy of
the probable, is just as much conclusive evidence against conformity with scientific
law as the too frequent occurrence of the improbable itself, (pp. 60-61).
To sum up, then : Monte Carlo roulette, if judged by returns which are pub-
lished without apparently being repudiated by the Soci6t^, is, if the laws of chance
rule, from the standpoint of exact science the most prodigious miracle of the nine-
teenth century. Yet even the supernatural would be discredited by fortnightly re-
currences ; we are forced to accept as an alternative that the random spinning of a
roulette manfactured and daily adjusted with extraordinary care is not obedient to
the laws of chance, but is chaotic in its manifestations, (p. 61).^^*
If we apply to the empirical curves in Plate XL VIII the formulae
for "closeness of fit" and its probability, we get
Gjin-tossing, A = 4.25 P^=.ii42
Roulette, A = 13.7 P = .[42 zeros] 1355
And if we inspect the distributions for the occurrence of the least prob-
able events we find that, although there was opportunity for a nm of 8177
*w Italics are inserted by the writer.
»*» Professor Pearson tells us in a footnote (op. cit., pp. 57-8) that since the
above was written, he has investigated the runs of color at various places and
times: (i) in 18,355 coups in Rouge et Noir, made at Saxon-les-Baines some thirty
years earlier, he found the distribution of runs "perfectly normal." (2) In "sev-
eral thousand" coups in Roulette, made at Monte Carlo in 1885, he found the runs
"slightly improbable." (3) In 31,074 coups in roulette, made in October and No-
vember 1887, at Monte Carlo, he found "a deviation in intermittences of 273, and
this equals 3.6 times the standard deviation (75.71)," the odds being "5000 to one
against such an excess of intermittences. We may conclude, therefore, that the
Monte Carlo returns were beginning to be mathematically improbable in 1887, al-
though they were not then so miraculous as in 1892."
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332 INDUCTIVB PROBABIUTY
sequences of a single color, as well as for a run of each smaller number
down to 13, none of these highly improbable runs were made. The high-
est number of sequences was 12, which occurred in accordance with
theory just once, in the roulette series, as it occurred just once in the coin-
tossing series.
The concordance of the runs obtained in coin-tossing, shown above,
with the runs prescribed by the laws of chance, is matched by the con-
cordance of fact with theory in a more complicated treatment of 4096
throws of a penny made by Miss Alice Johnson.^** She divided her whole
series into "cycles" in which the first event was an H following a T, and
the final event was the last T preceding an H ; thus, her first 17 throws
were divided into the following 5 cycles; HHHTT, HT, HHT, HTTT,
HHT, There was a total of 1014 cycles. These she tabulated and put in
a table showing: "(i) The number of runs of different lengths of both
alternatives H and T, and (2), in the case of one alternative, H, the runs
of each length subdivided to show what length of run of the other alter-
native they were followed by." Each entry in the table is accompanied by
its theoretical value as derived from the law of chances. The general
concordance of the empirical values with the theoretical is striking, even
for the less probable events. There are nine events that are to be ex-
pected but once ; they occiu-red 0, 2, i, i, i, i, 0, 0, 0, times, respectively.
Eight events are to be expected twice ; they occurred 0, 0, /, j, 2, /, 2, 2,
times, respectively. Theoretically, the highest run of H's or Ts is 12;
the highest run of Ts was 10, of H*s, 75. For the latter event P =
.0000298 ; it could be expected to occur 298 times in ten million throws,
or once in about 33,500 throws. Another highly improbable event re-
corded in the table is a rim of 8 H's succeeded by a run of 5 T's : P =
.00001526; it could be expected to occur once in about 66,000 throws,
and is slightly less probable than the scientifically acceptable limit of
chance deviation (P = .0000221 ) .
Miss Johnson observed that her table of complex events
... is a further illustration of the fact that the larger the series, the smaller in
proportion become the deviations from theory. . . . [The] closer correspondence
with theory is only found in the case of events having a comparatively large prob-
ability. . . .
Another feature which is rather surprising at first sight is the exact correspond-
ence with theory of some among the very long cycles. It will, however, be seen on
consideration that, although the relative deviation from probability in the case of
these very large cycles is likely to be often great, the absolute deviation is likely to be
almost always small, so that there is really a greater chance of such exact corre-
spondences occurring than in the case of the shorter cycles. ... (p. 190).
*•• Alice Johnson : Coincidences. Proceedings 5". P. R., 1899, 14 : 188 ff.
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EMPIRICAL AND THEORETICAL CENTRAL MEASURES 333
And she concluded :
If, then, wc were trying to judge whether there was evidence of any agency
beyond chance in an actual series of this kind, we should have to be very cautious
in drawing conclusions from these apparently remarkable occurrences, unless they
were very numerous. We should be on much safer ground in dealing only with
the deviations from the theoretical results shown by the shorter cycles. Similarly,
a few extraordinary coincidences, though much more striking to the imagination,
afford much less reliable evidence of something beyond chance than a large number
of trivial ones all pointing in the same direction, (p. 191).
It seems reasonable to conclude from this exhibit of the correspond-
ences between empirical and theoretical distributions (i) that, when the
value of p lies within the range of .02-.98, chance events empirically
derived distribute themselves about the most probable number in accord-
ance with the mathematical law of chances, (2) that the least probable
events permitted by the distribution conform in their frequency to this
generalization, (3) that the highly improbable events may be practically
disregarded, as, indeed, the theory of chances teaches, and (4) that the
available formulae for testing a distribution of empirical events for extra-
chance disturbance, which have been suflSciently verified in experience to
be confidently employed by the foremost scientists, may be safely and
profitably employed in the field of psychical research where it is especi-
ally essential to determine whether alleged extra-chance causes are
present.
Empirical and Theoretical Central Measures.
When a number of measures are reduced to an average, or the
arithmetical mean (M), it is customary to accompany this central measure
with a value which indicates its reliability. Sometimes the latter value, to
be reg^ded as a coefiicient of precision, is given in the form of the
mean variation (MF), which is the average of the deviations of the
individual measures from their mean, but more generally it is given
in the form of the "probable error" (P£),^*^ which is a deviation from
the mean that may be expected to include one-half of the means found
from any number of further series of measurements of the same thing.
Now, this more generally used coefiicient of precision is based upon the
empirical standard deviation (0)* and relates tiie mean to the distribution
of the values from which it is obtained. It is an application of the law of
♦a=^ \/"Z''in which ft is the deviation of the individual measure from the
mean, 2 is the sign of summation, and n is the number of measures in the series
averaged. ^
mp£=r.6745 -— •
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334 INDUCTIVE PROBABILITY
chances to an empirical measure for the purpose of mdicating the pre-
cise range (M-PE to M + PE) within which the true (but unknown)
mean may be expected with a probability of .5 to lie. It is ♦derived fr<Hn
the standard deviation because the latter has become the customary
^'measure of dispersion" ^•^ of empirical measures, by the use of which
any deviation from the mean may be related to the distribution, and its
probability determined.
When the empirical measures are obtained by chance, as in coin-
tossing, their dispersion is known to be the result of the errors due to
"simple sampling," ^•^ as dispersion is assumed to be in the other empir-
ical measures, and the standard deviation (o) as a measure of dispersion
becomes the "standard error,** ^•^ an instnmient for the determination of
the probability of the presence of an extra-chance cause. The mean is
known, being determined a priori by np. When an empirical deviation
from the mean is greater than 4.24 times the standard deviation, it is re-
garded as exceeding the limit of chance deviation (L), — ^as falling beyond
the theoretical distribution of chance events. When it is less than 40, its
probability by chance can be determined from a table of the probability
values arranged for x/a.^^' Thus we have a definite means based upon the
law of chances, for testing empirical central measures for the determina-
tion of extra-chance influence. It is part and parcel of the general
statistical procedure everywhere in use in the established sciences. Should
some procedure based upon inductive probability be claimed to be more
applicable than this in the field of psychical research, a presumption
would thereby be made that psychical research diflFers in some essential
way from other scientific research, and the claim could be maintained
only by establishing this presumption. Practically such a claim can be
^•2 Yule : An Introduction to the Theory of Statistics. 3d ed., pp. 142 ff.
!•» Vide, Yule : Ibid., pp. 254 ff.
^^^Idem, p. 267. The theoretical "standard deviation" is: 0= ^pQn, if ex-
pressed in absolute numbers ; a = VpqTn, if expressed as a ratio of n.
*•* This procedure assumes a symmetrical distribution (». e., p =q = .5) and
introduces an error that becomes greater as the value of p departs from the value
of q, but that is practically negligible down to ^ = .025, as may be seen by refer-
ence to Plate V (p. 99, supra), o = y/pqn = V.025 X .975 X 50 = 1.105, 30 = 3.315,
and Af + 30 = 4.565. The distribution is almost wholly below this (Yule's) rough
limit; and, as may be learned from Table XLI (p. 89, supra), the scientific limit
(L) of deviation (Vide, pp. 82 f., supra) is 4.96, making Af + L = 6.21, which is
above the whole distribution, since, as is shown in Table XLIII (p. 97, supra), the
greatest number of R cases in a set was 6, If greater precision is desired in the de-
termination of the probability of a deviation, Bernoulli's Theorem may be used as
illustrated on pp. 80 ff., supra.
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EMPIRICAL AND THEORETICAL CENTRAL MEASURES 335
offset by the exhibition of the concordance between empirical central
measures and theoretical expectation.
Before examining our empirical central measures, however, let us
review a classical instance of the application of inductive probability to
the results of psychical research investigation.
On page 34, supra, we said, "But Preyer showed that the deviations
from probability upon which Richet had based his conclusions are not only
equaled but surpassed by experimental chance (in lottery drawings in
series of equal length to that of Richet)," taking Preyer at his own rep-
resentation. And on page 49, supra, we quoted the results of one of
Richet's series of guessing upon the suit of pla3ring-cards, the probability
of which Edgeworth found to be 0.008; there were 2927 trials and 789
(27%, an excess of 2%) R guesses, from which we calculate the ratio of
the excess per cent of R cases to the limit of chance deviation (x/L)
to be 0.59, and the probability by the x/a method to be 0.0073. I" 10,000
series, such as Richet had, we should expect only 73 of them to show
chance deviations greater than +2% ; yet the deviation is only 59% of the
limit of chance acceptable to science.
Now, since Preyer's criticism is well known, and since only one of
Richet's many series has been referred to in this monograph, the reader
might reasonably infer that upon the basis of inductive probability Rich-
et's conclusions, based upon theoretical probability, have been once and
for all overthrown. Against this inference the writer wishes to suggest
two reasons for caution. In the first place, Richet's more striking results,,
not quoted or reviewed in this volume because they were obtained in ex-
periments which were not similar to any of ours, are much less probably
due to chance than the results of the series quoted. In the second place,
Preyer's procedure in making the comparison between Richet's results
and the results of lottery-drawings does not seem satisfactory; from his
own figures (op. cit, pp. 66-7) the deviations of Richet's results may be
shown to exceed those of the lottery results.
Accepting the questionable method of aggregating the results of
Preyer's 18 listed series of Richet's experiments in which p varies through
17 gradations from 0.5 to 0.0128, we start, with Preyer, with 8670 cases,
2177 R cases, and 2019 the most probable number of R cases ; from the
latter we get ^ = .233 (23.3%), and the other values in the first line in
Table LXXXIII, infra. And taking the average of the R cases per 867a
drawings for the 12 series selected by Preyer from the record of the
"konigl. Sachsischen Lotterie" for May 1885, we get 193 or 2.22% as
against the probability of 2%, from which we calculate the rest of the
values in the 2d line of the table. While the excess of R cases over prob-
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336 INDUCTIVE PROBABILITY
ability in Richet's aggregated results comes very dose to the limit of
chance deviation (x/L = .910), and, by the x/e method, may be expected
to be exceeded by only 12 plus and minus chance deviations in 100,000
aggregates such as Richet's, the average excess of R cases in the selected
series of lottery drawings amounts to only 34% of the limit of chance
deviation, and may be expected to be exceeded by 14,430 plus and minus
chance deviations in 100,000 averages.
TABLE LXXXIII.
n R p s x/L x/a P
1. Richet 8670 .2510 ass .0180 0.910 3.85 .00012
2. Lottery 8^ .0222 xao .0022 0.344 1.46 .14430
3. Richet 657 .2290 .167 .0620 IjOOS 406 xxx)02
4. Lottery 8670 .0235 .020 .0035 0.550 2.33 .00990
If we appeal from aggregates and averages, and inspect the largest
deviations in the two tables of contrasted results, we find equally decisive
evidence for the superiority of Richet's results. In the table of Richet's
results is a series of 657 guesses; R cases = 22.9%, ^ = 16.7%, excess
= 6.2%. The excess, as is shown in the 3d line of the table above, just
exceeds the limit of chance deviation (x/L), and is decisive in indicating
an extra-chance cause working for R cases. Only 2 chance deviations
out of 100,000 such series may be expected to equal or exceed it. The
largest deviation in the lottery series is 0.35% (p = 2%), which, as is
shown in the 4th line of the table above is only 55% of the limit of chance
deviation and may be expected to be exceeded by 990 positive chance de-
viations in 100,000 series of lottery drawings.
The conclusions drawn by Preyer were based upon a comparison of
the x/p values, which, because of the difference in the values of p, was
unsound procedure. More comparable values would have been x/^p-p*.
This classical instance of the use of an inductive probability to test
the results of experiments in thought-transference fails not only in its
specific purpose, but also in revealing any empirical deviations which are
not to be expected from theoretical probability, or any characteristics
which commend an inductive probability over the theoretical probability
as an instrument for testing for an extra-chance cause the results of ex-
periments the conditions of which indicate the probability of a single oc-
currence.
Let us now examine our empirical central measures of chance
events. It will be recalled that while we were examining the distributions
of empirical chance events we took occasion to inquire whether the highly
improbable events occur, and whether the least probable events which
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EMPIRICAL AND THEORETICAL CENTRAL MEASURES 337
actually did occur occurred with a frequency demanded by theoretical
probability. These events were single meastu-es, and our judgment con-
cerning them depended upon their relation to the limiting values of the
theoretical distribution. If the largest positive deviation in any empirical
distribution was not greater than the laws of chance call for, but was
approximately as great, or if the largest possible deviation occurred ap-
proximately as often as theory demands, these empirical deviations were
regarded as supporting the theoretical law of chances by which they could
be safely predicted. When the largest empirical deviations from the
mean occurred much more often than theory allowed (as in Curve B,
Plate XLVI),*** it was confidently stated that they were disturbed by
extra-chance causes, as was justified by the conformance of all carefully
acquired empirical distributions with their theoretical distributions. Now,
a central measure, the mean, or the per cent of R cases, is a similar
single measure which belongs to a distribution of empirical means and
can be tested in precisely the same way. Should a mean fall beyond the
limit of the theoretical distribution to which it belongs, it would, be re-
garded as being disturbed by an extra-chance cause. Should it fall within
its theoretical distribution, its probability can be found just as the prob-
ability of any event in a distribution can be fotmd. If the empirical
central measures which are available for our inspection are found to con-
form to theory, both theoretical probability and the formulae applicable
to central measures will receive confirmation.
1. In the guessing of Lotto-Block numbers there were two series of
approximately 500 guesses, one of them being a "Number Imaged" series.
Assuming that chance causes were undisturbed in the production of R
cases, we have in Table III (p. 39, supra) twelve empirical central meas-
ures of chance events. Each is the mean number of R cases per guess, or
the per cent of R guesses. The theoretical mean is the probability of an
R case by chance, expressed in per cent ; and the difference between these
two values we may call x. In the following table we display these twelve
empirical measures together with the other values menticmed from which
we calculate the probability that they are caused by chance (P).
We note in the x/a column only one value greater than unity, which,
to be significant, should be as great as 4.24. And in the P colunm we see
that the probability is high enough in all cases to exclude the hypothesis
of extra-chance cause. The 12 central measures of R cases in the guess-
ing of Lotto-Block numbers conform to the expectation for chance
events.
2. In the last colunm of Table I (p. 38, supra) we have ten aggre-
»•• Supra, p. 324.
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338 INDUCTIVE PROBABIUry
TABLE LXXXIV.
R p X x/a F^
Whole number Ntiinber Imaged ijoo 1^3 0^3 ^ ^38
Number not Imaged. . 1.18 1.23 Oj05 .0102 .592
Ten's digit Number Imaged 12.8 12.5 0.3 .205 .837
Number not Imaged ii.i 12.5 14 jg/S .337
Unit's digit Number Imaged 12.2 lao 2.2 1.5 .134
Number not Imaged 9.1 iojO ap J67 .503
Ten's for Unit's Number Imaged 6jS 6.9 a3 j^ .791
Number not Imaged 74 6.9 as 44 .660
Unit's for Ten's Number Imaged 6.0 6.9 0.9 .79 430
Number not Imaged ao 6.9 i.i .97 .332
Transposed Number Imaged 1.23 0.85 0.38 .925 -355
Number not Imaged 0.80 0.85 0.05 .122 .903
gates of the occurrences of blanks drawn from the bag in 100 experi-
ments ; ^ == .5 ; they range from 41-57 ; the deviations (x) are -9 to +7 ;
x/a for these limiting deviations is 1.8 and 14 respectively, giving a prob-
ability (P) of 0.07186 and 0.16152 respectively, that they are chance de-
viations. These are the central values, for a set of 100 experiments,
which deviate most from the theoretical central value. If we consider
the central value for the whole series of experiments (1000), 502, or
50.2%, we find ;rt=o.2%, jt/c = 0.126, P = .8997. All of these empir-
ical central measures, then, fall well within the theoretical distributicHi, the
scientific limit of which, it must be constantly remembered, demands that
x/a is as large as 4.24, or that P is as small as .0000221.
3. In Tables IV and VI (pp. 39-40 supra) we have, in the last col-
umn, the occurrences of the respective digits, in unit's place, in 500 draw-
ings of Lotto-Blocks from the bag. There are 20 cases; the range is
37-65; P = ^'f ^ = -13 and +15; .r/a=i.93 and 2.23; P = 0.05360
and 0.02574. These 20 central empirical measures fall well within the
theoretical distribution.
4. In Table X (p. 42, supra) we have the chance occurrence of the
respective die-spots in 500 throws. There are 12 cases; P = %. The
central measures (the number of occurrences) range from 71 to 95 and
deviate from the theoretical central measure (83) as much as ~I2 and
+12; for these minimal and maximal values, x/a=i^, P = . 14986.
In Tables LI (p. 126, supra) and XXII (p. 70), we have the like occur-
rences in sets of 1000 and 9800 throws respectively; and if we add to
♦ The number under P expresses the probability that the jr is a chance devia-
tion; e. g, the first P value indicates that the probability of the x value of 0.23
being a chance deviation is .638 in i ; or that of 1000 such values 638 chance de-
viations may be expected to be larger than x. P = 2,/^ .
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EMPIRICAL AND THEORETICAL CENTRAL MEASURES
339
the data included in these three tables, those of the experiments on "The
Feeling of Being Stared At," we shall have a set of 14,600 throws, in
which the die-spots occurred as follows :
/, 2502
^, 2350
3f 2491
4. 2349
5f 2480
6, 2428
While the most probable number is 2433. Now, if we calculate the prob-
ability (P) of the largest negative deviation and the largest positive de-
viation of the central measures obtained from these tables, and from the
aggregate of throws, we find the values in the following Table, the last
line of which gives the theoretical limit of chance deviation (L) :
TABLE LXXXV.
Die-throws, p = */^.
Table
X
LI
XXII
Aggregrate
Page Number of -x -x/o
Expmts. Meas. %
42 500 12 24 144
126 1000 6 1.7 144
70 9800 6 0.87 2.28
14600 6 0.58 144
Limit (L) 4.24
.14986
.14986
.02260
.14986
.0000221
%
2.4
2.8
0.50
047
■k-x/a
1.44
2.38
1.33
1.18
4:24
.14986
.01732
.18350
.23800
.0000221
It will be seen that all of these occurrences, the least probable in our
data tmder consideration, are in accord with theoretical expectation ; and
that the larger the set, the smaller does the deviation from the theoretical
central measure (in per cent) become, and the probability that the em-
pirical deviation is a chance deviation does not decrease.
5. In a similar way we may examine the various empirical central
measures of the larger sets of trials which our data provide, together
with similar empirical measures from other sources. And, since the
value of the probability of a single occurrence (p) is an important con-
sideration, the data will be presented in tables under the varying values
of p. In Table LXXXVI the various available sets of data in which the
probability of a single occurrence (^ = .025) is small are brought to-
gether; the number of experiments or trials (n), the deviation of the
per cent of R cases or occurrences from the theoretical per cent (x), the
amount of this deviation in terms of the theoretical standard deviation
(x/a), and the probability that the deviation is a chance deviation (P)
are given. Line / gives the R guesses on the "Card" in 5135 "Card
Imaged" experiments {inde, Table XV, p. 64, supra), and line ^ gives
the R guesses in 4865 "Card not Imaged" experiments, while line 3 gives
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340
INDUCTIVE PROBABILITY
the aggregate of these R guesses in the total of 10,000 experiments.
Line 4 gives the occurrence of the Ace of Hearts, and line 5 of the Four
of Spades, in the drawing of cards from shuffled packs, in our card-
guessing experiments; the former occurred less often, the latter more
often, than any other card. Line 6 gives the occurrence of Zero in
31,074 coups at Roulette in Monte Carlo play from October to November
1887, as calculated by Pearson ^•^ from returns published in the semi-
official Le Pointeur, Line 7 gives the occurrence of Zero during 48 days
of play at one table in Monte Carlo reported by "a student of the game
of Roulette" ; *•• and line 8, the maximum deviation in the occurrence of
a single number during the same period. (In the Roulette data, p =
.027). The last line in this and in the immediately succeeding tables gives
the x/a and P values for the theoretical limit of chance deviation.
TABLE LXXXVI.
^ =
.025.
Source
Method
Event
n
X
x/o
p*
I. Stanford
Cards
R Guess
5135
0.48
2.20
.02780
2.
u
u
4865
0.40
1.79
.07346
3. "
**
u
loooo
044
2.82
.00480
4. "
u
I H
loooo
0.34
2.18
.02926
5. "
it
4S
lOOOO
0.50
3^1
.00132
6. Pearson
Roulette
Zero
31074
1.60
11.94
.00000
7. "
M
«
31374
0.166
1.82
.06876
8.
ti
Max.
31374
0.252
2.76
.00578
Limit of Chance
a)
.. 4^
.0000221
All of these deviations, except that in line d, have a probability
which places them within the range of theoretical expectation. The least
probable is that of the occurrence of the Four of Spades, and it is to be
expected 132 times in 100,000 sets of 10,000 drawings. Those in lines 4.
and 5 are the largest of 40 deviations, the probability of which would, of
course, be higher than the probability of these respective events; and
that in line S is the largest in 37 deviations, of which that in line 7 is one.
These empirical central measures conform to the law of chances. The
"student" who contributed the data in lines 7 and 8 fotmd that 17 out of
37 deviations were 0, and that 10 others were not greater than 0.016% ;
the deviation of 0.252% was regarded as a noteworthy "exception." The
♦ Vide, footnote to Table LXXXIV, p. 338, supra.
^•T Pearson: Scientific aspect of Monte Carlo roulette, in "The Chances of
Death," vol. I, p. 57.
iw/Wrf., p. 5a
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EMPIRICAL AND THEORETICAL CENTRAL MEASURES
341
deviation in line d, however, cannot be accepted as a chance deviation
(the limit being x/o=^^2^). A study of the occurrence of the respective
numbers in Roulette led Professor Pearson to say : "the special numbers
themselves are in all probability occasionally very chaotic." *•• One
series of 16,563 throws which he examined gave him results of which he
said : ''The odds against a divergence so great as this are roughly about
2,000,000 to I.""*
In Table LXXXVII the probability of occurrence is a step higher
(^ = .1). Lines / and 2 give the R guesses on the number of spots in
the "Card Imaged" and "Card not Imaged" experiments, respectively,
(from Table XV, p. 64) ; line 3 gives the aggregate; line 4 gives the R
cases in the guessing of digits, and line 5 in the guessing of spots on
playing-cards conducted by the old American Society for Psychical Re-
search ;*^*^ lines 6* and 7 give the occurrences of the 7-spot and lo-spot
cards in drawings from a shufHed pack, the former having been less fre-
quent, the latter more frequent, than cards with other numbers of spots.
P =
.1.
Source
Method
Event
n
X
x/a
p
I. Stanford
Cards
R Guess
5135
OA77
1.142
^5346
2.
«
«
4865
0.Q3I
0.072
.94260
3. "
«
it
lOOOO
0.260
0^
.38596
4. Am. S. P. R.
Digits
u
I2I30
0.333
1.22
.22248
5.
Cards
tt
40SO
0.593
1.26
^20766
6. Stanford
<«
7-spot
lOOOO
0.75
2.50
.01242
7. "
w
lo-spot
lOOOO
0.51
1.70
.08914
Limit of Chance
a)
. 4.24
.0000221
All of these deviations are well within the field of chance deviation.
In Table LXXXVIII the probability of occurrence is a second step
higher (^t=% or .167). Line i gives the occurrence of the 6-spot in
Miss Smith's aggregate of 2000 throws (from the distribution shown in
Curve A, Plate XLV),"* line 2 gives the occurrence of the 6-spot in the
aggregate of our throws of dice, and line j gives the like occurrence in
Weldon's throws of 12 dice (from the distribution shown in Curve B,
Plate XLV)."»
!•• Op. cit., p. 56.
"o/WJ., p. 52.
^''^Proceedings Am.S.P,R., Series I, 1:28, 107.
»^« Supra, p. 322.
i»» Supra, p. 322.
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342
INDUCTIVE PROBABIUTY
TABLE LXXXVIII.
^ = v.
= .167.
Source
Method
Event
n
X
x/o
p
I. Stanford
Dice
6-spot
2000
0.220
0.837
.40260
2.
it
u
14600
0.Q30
0.074
.94102
3. Weldon
«
tt
49152
0.000
0.000
.99999
Limit of Chance
a)
.. 4.24
.0000221
The probability of the deviation from the theoretical mean in line i
is close to average, in lines 2 and j exceptionally high.
In Table LXXXIX the probability of occurrence is a third step
higher (^ = .25). Lines / and 2 give the R guesses on "Suit" in the
"Card Imaged" and "Card not Imaged" experiments, respectively, (from
Table XV, p. 64), and line 5 gives the aggregate R guesses ; line 4 gives
the occurrence of Hearts, line 5 of Spades, in the drawings of the cards
from a shufHed pack, the former having occurred less often, the latter
more often, than any other suit, and line 6 gives the occurrence of one
head in throws of four pennies made by Miss Sudden (from the distri-
bution shown in Curve \A, Plate XLVI)."*
TABLE LXXXIX.
P^
.25.
Source
Method
Event
n
X
x/a
p
I. Stanford
Cards
R Guess
5135
I.I7
1.94
.05238
2.
«
If
4865
0.74
1.19
.23404
3. "
«
ti
lOOOO
0.96
2J2I
.02710
4. **
it
Hearts
lOOOO
0.68
1.57
.11642
5. "
*4
Spades
lOOOO
1.60
370
.00022
6.
Pennies
I Head
1000
1.60
I.I7
J^200
Limit of
Chance
a)
.. 4.24
Again all the deviations lie within the limits of chance. One devia-
tion, however, that in line 5, is interesting in that its probability is less
than any others to be found among our empirical central measures ; yet
we should expect the occurrence of a suit at least as often in 22 out of
100,000 sets of 10,000 drawings of cards.
In Table XC the probability of occurrence is a fourth step higher
(^ = H)- Line / gives the occurrence of the 5-spot and the 6-spot in
the aggregate throws of dice, and line 2 gives the Uke occurrence in 248
throws of three dice made by Yule. *^*
IT* Supra, p. 324.
1T5 Yule : An Introduction to the Theory of Statistics, 3d ed., p. 259.
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EMPIRICAL AND THEORETICAL CENTRAL MEASURES 343
TABLE XC.
^ = V, = .333.
Source Method Event n x x/a P
1. Stanford Dice 5 and 6 14600 0^3 0.725 .46846
2. Yule " " 1944 1.13 1.060 .28914
These deviations, as their probability shows, are good samples of
chance events.
Table XCI displays a number of empirical central measures from
sets varying considerably in size and in method; the probability of a
single occurrence is .5. Line i gives the occurrence of drawing the blank
side of a Lotto-Block (from the total of the last column of Table I, p.
38, supra) ; lines 2 and j, the largest negative and largest positive devia-
tions, respectively, in the occurrence of an odd die-number in 13 sets of
1000 throws ; lines 4 and 5, the R guesses on color in the "Card Imaged"
and "Card not Imaged" experiments, respectively (from Table XV, p.
64) ; lines 6 and 7, the like occurrences, respectively, in the thought-
transference experiments conducted by the old American Society for
Psychical Research ;^^* lines 8 and p, the occurrence of a red card in a
set of 10,000 drawings from a shuffled pack of red and black cards, the
former made in our thought-transference experiments, (see Curve A,
Plate XLIV),*" the latter made by Charlier"® (see Curve C, same
plate) ; line 10, the occurrence of one of the first forty-five numbers in
drawings made by Westergaard *^® from a bag containing 90 tickets ntmi-
bered from i to 90 ; lines /J, 12 and 13 the occurrence of heads in the
tossing of pennies at Stanford (of which the distributions are shown in
in curves A, D, and £, Plate XLVI) ;"• lines 14, 15, 16, 17, and 18, the
like occurrence in the tossing of coins by Miss Alice Jdinson/*^ Buffon,^^*
De Morgan,"* GriflSth,^^* and Pearson,^^* respectively; line /p, the
occurrence of heads in the aggregate of the throws reported in lines zi,
12, and 13 ; line 20, the like occurrence in throws of a penny made by
Jevons;"* line 21, the like occurrence in throws of a shilling, made by
Pearson ;^^* lines 22 and 23, the occurrence of white balls in the drawings
of white and black balls made by Quetelet,^^* and Westergaard,*'* (see
^f^ Proceedings Am.S.P.R., 1885, Series I, 1:20.
""f Supra, p. 320.
iT« Ame Fisher : The Mathematical Theory of Probabilities and its application
to frequency curves and statistical methods. New York, 191 5, vol. I, p. 138.
1^* Pearson : The scientific aspect of Mcmte Carlo, loc. cit., p. 48.
^^^ Supra, p. 324.
191 Proceedings, SP.R., 1899, 14:189.
!•« John Grier Hibben : Inductive Logic. New York, 1901, p. 236.
i«» Yule : An Introduction to the Theory of Statistics. 3d ed., p. 247.
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344
INDUCTIVB PROBABILITY
Curve C, Plate XLIII)/** respectively; line 2^, the occurrence of odd
die-spots in the aggregate throws of dice made in connection with experi-
ments reported in Part I ; line 25, the occurrence of die-spots ^, 5, and
d, in the same aggregate of throws ; lines 26 and ^7, the like occurrence
in throws made by Weldon** (see Curve A, Plate XLVII),"* and Dar-
bishire"^ (see Curve B, same plate), respectively; line 28^ 2g^ and Jo, the
occurrence of red in the coups of the Roulette at Monte Carlo, as cal-
culated by Pearson, "• De W^alley, *^* and Pearson,*" respectively.
TABLE XCI.
P^
.5.
Source
Method
Event
fl
X
x/a
P
I. Stanford Lotto-Blocks
Blank
1,000
a20
0.126
.89974
2. **
Dice
Odd
1,000
lA)
1.140
.25428
3. "
u
«
1,000
4.10
2.590
.00940
4. "
Cards
R Guess
S,i3S
0.224
0.321
.74822
s. "
«
«
4^5
1.22
1.680
.09296
6. Am. S. P. R.
M
«<
5500
a5i
0.7S4
45085
7.
l<
<«
5,150
0.35
0.501
.61638
a Stanford
M
Red
10,000
1.06
2.120
.03400
9. Charlicr
U
f<
10,000
0.66
1.320
.18684
10. Westergaard
Tickets
1st half
7,275
0.034
0.058
.95374
II. Sudden
Coins
Heads
4,000
045
0.570
.56868
12. J. E. Coovcr
<«
«
6,000
0.62
0.955
.33958
13. C C Coovcr
«
M
6,000
0.38
0.594
.55252
14. Johnson
«
<«
4,096
0.22
0.281
.77872
15. Buffon
«
««
4,040
i.oo
1.268
.20480
16. De Morgan
M
«<
4,092
0.05
0.064
.94898
17. Griffith
M
M
8,178
. 0.04
0.072
.94260
18. Pearson
M
l«
12,000
0.16
0.351
.72560
19. Stanford
«
M
i6/xx>
ao25
0.063
.94976
20. Jevons
«
U
20,480
0.55
1.575
.11526
21. Pearson
M
M
24,000
0.05
0.155
.87782
22. Quetelet
Balk
White
4,096
040
0.513
.60796
23. Westergaard
«
M
10,000
0.1 1
0.220
.82588
24. Stanford
Dice
Odd
14,600
1. 185
2.860
.00424
25. "
«
4.5.6
14,600
OJ95
0.712
47648
26. Weldon
«
M
49,153
1.16
5.130
.00000
27, Darbishire
<f
«
78,000
1.24
6.920
.00000
28. Pearson
Roulette
Red
16.141
0.IS
a38o
.70394
29. Dc WhaUey
«
II
16,019
027
0.684
49398
30. Pearson
M
M
30,575
0.0147
0.0515
.95892
Limit of Chance
(L)
• 4.24
319.
"* Supra, p.
"» Yule : Op, cit., p. 258.
"•S-K^ra, p.
336.
»wYule: Op, cit,, p. 274.
»M Pearson:
Op. cit., p. 57, footnote
2.
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EMPIRICAL AND THEORETICAL CENTRAL MEASURES 345
All of the entries in this table, excepting lines 26 and 27, are in ac-
cord with the theoretical law of chances; in 100,000 sets, each com-
parable in number to the respective sets entered in the table, we may
expect from 424 (line 24) to 95,892 (line 50) to yield deviations from
the theoretical central measure greater than those which have occurred
in these sets. Evidence for an extra-chance cause is satisfactory if the
probability of the deviation is so small as to permit but 2, and this require-
ment is somewhat more than met in the deviations in lines 26 and ^7,
which occurred in throws of dice. The distributions of these sets were
foimd*** to deviate sufficiently from the theoretical distribution, that,
together, they could not be expected to occur once in a million pairs of
distributions. In the x/g column it may be seen that their deviations are
5.13 and 6.92 times the theoretical "standard deviation," while the limit of
chance prescribes 4.24 times that measure. Of the deviation in Weldon's
throws (;r/a = 5.i3) Yule said :^**
The deviation observed is 5.1 times the standard error, and, practically speak-
ing, could not occur as a fluctuation of simple sampling. It may perhaps indicate a
slight bias in the dice.
And concerning a deviation of 60, Karl Pearson said :"*
The odds against a deviation even six times the standard deviation are more
than a thousand million to one.
Karl Pearson has also observed,***- concerning dice, that "a persistent
bias has been observed in them."
These negative instances tend to strengthen the main body of evi-
dence adduced to show the concordance of empirically derived central
measures with theoretical expectation, and also to support the thesis that
in the theory of probability and the mathematical formulae derived there-
from lies an instrument of precision capable of revealing the presence of
even slight extra-chance causes and worthy of more generous adoption
in the field of psychical research. If the slight bias of dice can be dem-
onstrated, other slight constant causes certainly can.
In this section we have examined the deviations of empirical central
measures from theoretical central measures for an aggregate of '2,214,622
experiments in sets both small and large and when the probability of a
single occurrence of a designated event varied within the limits of
p = .025 and p = .5, and, except for the few cases accotmted for, we have
^w Supra, p. 326.
iMYule: 0^ c»/., p. 267.
»•! Supra, p. 330, footnote 157.
»•« Supra, p. 327, footnote 155.
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346 INDUCTIVE PROBABILITY ,
fotrnd that the empirical central measures derived under all these vary-
ing conditions, do not deviate from the theoretical central measures far-
ther than theory prescribes. Both theoretical probability and the form-
ulae derived therefrom which are applicable to central measures have re-
ceived confirmation*
The Infinitesimal Probability.
When considering the application of mental habit to experiments on
thought-transference we noticed the unsatisfactory nature of the condi-
tions of experiment which permitted the unreckoned influence of com-
mon associations, resulting from "psychical commtmism," ^•^ and observed
that the infinitesimally probable upon which reliance is placed may in
reality be highly probable. Again, when considering Venn's statement
that any given highly improbable event {e. g., the production of Milton's
"Paradise Lost," by recording the letters drawn at random from a bag)
must certainly occur if the trials are only kept up long enough, and his
cotmter-assertion, to the claim that any given empirical event may be one
of the occurrences which theory prescribes, "it is inconceivably unlikely
that it should be one," we reserved for separate consideration the "in-
finitesimal probability." ^•^ It is now time to see what we can make of it
We have fotmd that the distribution of frequency values derived
from empirical chance events agrees, within the limits prescribed by the
law, with the law of chances, and that when the empirical value imder
consideration is the occurrence of a least probable or a highly improbable
event, or is a central measure, the empirical value falls within the pre-
scribed limits in the theoretical distribution, also in accordance with the
law of chances. If the event is highly probable, such as 25 "heads" in 50
throws of a coin, it occurs more often in a given number of sets of 50
throws than does 26 heads, 27 heads, 30 heads, 40 heads or 50 heads.
The law of chances gives, for these events, the following probabilities:
Heads
P
25
.112
26
.108
27
.096
30
.0419
40
.000,009,12
SO
.000,000,000,000,000,888
The empirical frequency
values follow, as we have four
!•» Supra, pp. 297, 305-8.
!•* Supra, p. 316, footnote 140.
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THE INFINITESIMAL PROBABILITY 347
frequencies very closely. If we have loo sets of 50 throws we may ex-
pect about II or 12 sets to yield 25 heads, about 10 or 11 to yield 24 or
26 heads, about 9 or 10 to yield 23 or ^7 heads, about 4 to yield 20 or 50
heads, none to yield 10 or 40, or 0 or 50 heads. If we had 100,000 sets,
we could expect about one set to )deld /o, and another set to )deld ^0,
heads. If we had 1,000,000,000,000,000 sets, we should not be surprised
to find one set with 0 heads, or another with 50 heads, or both. In other
words, we expect the events of varying probability to occur in their
proper ratio.
Whether any given number of heads in a set of 50 throws is a highly
improbable event consequently depends upon the number of sets to be
examined.
The same reasoning applies to R guesses; for example, on cards
drawn from a shuffled pack of 40. The probability of a single occur-
rence (^ = .025) is much less than in the case of the coin-tossing
(^ = .5), and the probability of the various numbers of R cases in a set
of 50 guesses, is much different :
R Guesses
P
0
.282
I
.362
2
.227
3
.093
4
.028
5
.007
6
.001
7
.000,2
8
.000,03
9
.000,003
10
.000,0004
19
.000,000,000,000,000,05
If 100 sets of 50 guesses are examined, we should expect to find only
about one set in which there are 5 R cases, and would not be surprised
to find 6 R cases, which should occur about % as often as 5 R cases.
We could even look upon 7 R cases as a chance event. But 8 or more R
cases would be regarded as evidence of an extra-chance cause. If we
had 100,000 sets we could expect about 3 sets giving 8 R guesses, and
probably one giving 9 R guesses. If we had 1,000,000,000,000,000 sets
we might reasonably expect a set or two giving 18 R guesses, but we
would not expect any giving 19 R guesses. Thus, here too, one expects
the events which have varying chances for occurrence to occur in their
proper ratio. And, because of the difference in the value of p, we should
expect, in a tremendous number of sets of 50 trials, 19 R guesses on the
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348 INDUCTIVE PSOBABIUTY
"Card" less often than 50 R guesses on the Color of the card (when
P = 'S, the same as for heads in coin-tossuig).
Our survey both of empirical distributions and of empirical central
measures has justified the expectation that whatever the value of p, or
whatever the number of the trials or sets of trials examined, the various
frequencies in the distribution do conform to the prescribed probabilities,
and in the proper ratio of occurrence; that the extremely improbable
event, the event with an "infinitesimal probability," does not occur, and
may be practically disregarded although the law of chances makes its
occurrence necessary some time or other.
But we have already noticed that, since it must occur sometime, it
might happen in any series of trials, and in view of the fact that trials of
all sorts have been carried out to great numbers and, moreover, that any
empirical series of trials may be considered a part of an indefinitely large
number of series, it may fairly be asked whether occurrences which, upon
the basis of any single empirical series, must be r^^ded as having an
infinitesimal probability, may not be expected to occur, or indeed have
not occurred, and consequently could not be safely accepted in the limited
empirical series as evidence of an extra-chance cause. This query rises
in spite of the admission that the improbability of the event (on the basis
of the limited series) is an index to the degree with which it may be dis-
regarded and that scientific certainty is satisfied with a practical limit in
which P = .000022 1 .
The event with an infinitesimal probability has not occurred in our
empirical series, but it does seem to have occurred elsewhere: vis., in
g^mes of chance and in daily life. Let us examine and try to interpret
the meaning of some of these instances, and we may as well begin with
some events which have been sufficiently striking to be reported in the
literature, but the probability of which is far from "infinitesimal :"
E. Desbeaux**' has conmiunicated three cases in his own experi-
ence at Monte Carlo, the detail being reproduced from his diary. His
second and third cases follow :
(i) Tuesday, Dec. 26, 1894. — M. Desbeaux had to dodge out of the way of a
carriage bearing on its lighted lamps the number 22. At the Casino he placed some
money on 22, but it failed to turn up, and he left. Had dinner and returned. Des-
tiny having failed to furnish him a cue he decided it should be i. After he waited
an hour / turned up ; he then put down a louis on the 22. The croupier threw his
ball, and 22 turned up. The next day while lunching with friends at the Hotel du
Cap Martin, he noticed that the service-card on the table was 222. At nine o'clock
in the evening at the Casino just as he approached a roulette table the / turned up.
^*B£. Desbeaux: Trois cas de pr^moniticm. Annates des Sciences Psy^
chiques, Paris, i88p, 9:65-70.
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THE INFINITESIMAL PROBABILITY 349
Since success followed this cue once before, he staked a louts on the 22 again ;^
22 turned up; he took his winnings and left his louts on 22 for a second time, but
lost ; suspecting that the surplus 2 on the service-card at the hotel was supplied by
destiny for his cue, he hurriedly placed a louts on 22 a third time, since 2 had just
been called. He won. (Two 22^s out of three).
(2) Fehrtmry 3, 1899, — His glance was challenged by the number 11 painted
on a wall; he looked about for a cue and at once saw electric car No. 4. At the
Casmo while waiting for the 4 to turn up he played 5 franc pieces for an hour, con-
stantly losing. Upon .^ turning up he staked on //; it won. He picked up his
winnings and started on his way out, but upon glancing at the table on his left he
saw 4 turn up there. He at once put down a louts on the //, and won again. (Two
ifs in two trials. P = .000731).
Other cases of alleged presentiment relating to numbers were com-
mtmicated to the Society for Psychical Research ^'^ by Professor G. Hulin
of the University of Ghent. It appears that in Belgium young men have
often predicted the numbers they were to draw in the conscription for the
army :^*^
(3) Five cases of the right numbers being predicted, during the eight years,.
1886-1894, are given on good authority; the numbers in the first four cases being
respectively 90, 112, 216, 11 1. The first case was an especially striking one; a
clearly externalized vision of the number 90 appeared to the percipient, and pro-
duced a strong impression on his mind, convincing him that he would draw that
number. In the fifth case, the man who was to draw first announced that his num-
ber would be 116, and on being told that that was already drawn, said it would be
IIS, which turned out correct. The report only professes to give correct pre-
dictions, and we have no means of knowing how often predictions of these num-
bers are made which turn out wrong. Neither are we told how many numbers there
were to draw from, except in one case, where it appears that there were at least
150, the lowest of them being 46 and the highest 223. In this case, the number
216 was the one rightly guessed. We must assume, I think, that these facts were
known to the man who was to draw, . . . and, if so, the chance of his making a
correct guess was, of course, about i in 150. (pp. 253-4).
Assuming that the chance of a R guess of a conscription-number
was 3450 (^ = .00667), less than 300 guesses of conscription-numbers
would need to have been made during the eight years for the five cases
to be accotmted for by chance.
Richard A. Proctor ^"^ gives several cases of rare events :
(4) Professor De Morgan, in his 'Budget of Paradoxes' says : "In the French
lottery five numbers out of ninety were drawn at a time; any person, in any part
!•« Proceedings S, P, R., 189S, " : 545 ff.
^•^Idem, 1899, 14:253-4.
^M Richard A. Proctor : Chance and Luck ; a discussion of the laws of luck,,
coincidences, wagers, lotteries, and the fallacies of gambling. London, 1899.
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350 INDUCTIVE PROBABIUTY
of the country, might stake any sum upon any event he pleased, as that 27 should
be drawn ; that 42 and 81 should be drawn ; that 42 and 81 should be drawn and 42
first ; and so on up to a quine determini, if he chose, which is betting on five given
numbers in a given order." The chance of a successful guess, in this last case, is i
in 5,274,772,160. (^ = .000,000,000,19) (p. 144). ... No instances are on record of
a quine determiHi being won, but a simple quine, the odds against which, be it re-
membered, are nearly 44 millions to i (^ = .000,000,022,8), has been won; and
simple quatemes, against which the odds are more than half a million to i
ip = .000,002), have often been won. In July 1821 a strange circumstance occurred.
A gambler had selected the five numbers 8, 13, 16, 46, and 64, and for the same
drawing another had selected the four numbers 8, 16, 46, and 64. The numbers
actually drawn were
8 46 16 64 13
so that both gamblers won. Their stakes were small, unfortunately for them and
fortunately for the bank, and their actual winnings were only 131,350 francs and
20,852 francs respectively. If each had ventured £1 only, their respective winnings
would have been ii, 000,000 and £75,000. The coincidence was so remarkable (the
antecedent probability against two gamblers winning on a simple drawing or simple
quine and a simple quateme being about 22 billions to i [/» = .000,000,000,045,5]),
that one can understand a suspicion arising that a hint had been given from some
one employed at the lottery-office. M. Menut insinuates this, and a recent occur-
rence at Naples suggests at least the possibility of collusion between gamblers and
the drawers of lottery numbers. But in the case above cited the smallness of the
stakes warrants the belief that the result was purely accidental. Certainly the
gamblers would have staked more had they known what was to be the actual result
of the drawing, (pp. 145-6).
Whether these apparently improbable events had an infinitesimal
, probability would depend upon the number of wagers made. Proctor,
from figures given by De Morgan, calculates that about 5,000,000 persons
per annum staked money on the simple quateme alone, and quotes
Quetelet to the effect that in the five years 181 6- 1820 the total sums haz-
arded on all forms of venture in the Paris lottery amounted to 126,944,-
000 francs.*** If as many wagers had been placed upon simple quines
as appear to have been placed upon simple qucHernes, one might expect
a simple quine to be won, according to the law of chances, some three
times in twenty years.
In another place Proctor reports a remarkable event in the throwing
of dice :
(5) Mr. Steinmetz tells us that, in 1813, a Mr. Ogden wagered 1,000 guineas
to one that 'seven' would not be thrown with a pair of dice ten successive times.
The wager was accepted (though it was egregiously unfair), and strange to say
his opponent threw 'seven' nine times running. At this point Mr. Ogden offered
470 guineas to be off the bet. But his opponent declined (though the price offered
!•• Proctor : Op, cit, p. 147.
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THE INFINITESIMAL PROBABILITY 351
was far beyond the real value of his chance). He cast yet once more, and threw
'nine/ so that Mr. Ogden won his guinea.
Now here we have an instance of a most remarkable series of throws, the like
of which has never been recorded before or since. Before those throws had been
made, it might have been asserted that the throwing of nine successive 'sevens' with
a pair of dice was a circumstance which chance could never bring about, for ex-
perience was as much against such an event as it would seem to be against the
turning up of a certain number ten successive times at Roulette. Yet experience
now shows that the thing is possible ; and if we are to limit the action of chance,
we must assert that the throwing of 'seven' ten times in succession is an event
which will never happen. Yet such a conclusion obviously rests on as unstable a
basis as the former, of which experience has disposed, (pp. 34-S).
The chance of throwing 'seven' with a pair of dice is % ; of throw-
ing 'seven' nine times in succession is (%)•, or once in 10,077,696 trials
(^ = .000,000,099,5), which we may regard as an infinitesimal probabil-
ity when only a short series of throws is considered. The event which
did not occur (the throwing of 'seven' ten times running) has a prob-
ability of .000,000,016,6. According to the law of chances, as Proctor
intimated, either of these events may be expected to occur in a sufficiently
great number of trials, and if we were to regard the occurrence of the
run of nine 'sevens' as belonging to the aggregate series of all the trials
ever made to throw 'seven,' it might after all have a fair degree of prob-
ability. Thus, if 11,000,000 trials had been made it was overdue.
Miss Alice Johnson *®^ has recorded a remarkable event ensuing from
"a guessing competition" :
(6) It happens that a good deal of information is available about it, as it was
the subject of two trials, the proprietor of the paper having refused to pay the
prize money to the successful competitor, who therefore brought an action against
him. The jury gave a verdict for the plaintiff, but this was disallowed by the
Judge, on the ground that the competition was a "lottery" (that is, a distribution
of prizes determined by lot or chance, and involving no skill) and therefore illegal.
The judgment was appealed against, and the Court of Appeal determined that the
competition was not a lottery, (p. 322).
. . . Mr. Bingham Cox, in copies of the paper (the Rocket) of November
last, had offered a prize of £1000 to any one who should predict the exact number
of male and female births, together with the number of deaths in London for the
week ending December 11, i8p7. There was also a number of consolation prizes
offered for those who might not predict the exact figures, but get very near to them.
Hoping to be the £1000 prize-winner, the plaintiff (John Henry Hall, butcher, near
Sheffield) bought 252 copies. From these copies he cut out the coupons, filled them
up in the required manner, and forwarded them to the offices of the Rocket. In
one of these coupons, according to counsel, he predicted that the number of births
for the week ending December 11 in Lonflon would be: — Males, 1,244; females,
1,245; and deaths, 1JB66. Plaintiff afterwards obtained from the Registrar-General
200 Alice Johnson : Coincidences. Proceedings S, P. R,, 1899, 14 : 323 ff .
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352 INDUCTIVE PROBABILiry
or from the Queen's Printers ... the returns of the male and female births and
of deaths for the week in question, and it was alleged that the figures were precisely
the same as those that had been forecast by the plaintiff ... (pp. 322-3).
. . . The point was argued whether the competition was a lottery or not . . .
In a lottery there was, he (counsel for the plaintiff) said, no opportunity given for
the employment of any skill or judgment whatever. It depended purely on chance,
and no exercise of skill or knowledge entered into it. The present case was en-
tirely different, for the plaintiff had clearly shown that he had taken a considerable
amount of trouble to obtain information to enable him to form a correct judgment
(p. 325).
[In the Court of Appeal, the counsel] for the plaintiff ccmtended that this was
not a competition of mere chance, but some skill came into it — ^namely, calculating
from previous returns of the Registrar-C^eneral how many births and deaths would
be likely to take place in London in a particular week. It was not, therefore, a
lottery. ...
Lord Justice A. L. Smith said that, in his opinion, this was not a lottery. The
solution of the question did not depend upon mere chance. It depended very
largely upon chance, but there was an element of statistical inquiry brought into it
. . . Lord Justice Rigby and Lord Justice Cx>llins concurred.
In reply to an inquiry made later in the same month, I was informed that
^'the Rocket and its late proprietor are both dead," so that it seems very doubtful
whether the prize money was ever paid. (p. 327).
Although judgment was awarded the plaintiff on the grounds of some
element of skill in the competition for the prize, the judge admitted that
the solution of the question "depended very largely upon chance," and it
is our interest to learn approximately what, after skill is allowed for, the
probability of a correct return was. Miss Johnson has estimated this by
finding the actual range of the variations in the numbers of male and
female births and of deaths in a week, in London, during a large ntmiber
of weeks, and then calculating the number of possible combinations of
numbers within these ranges :
The chance of getting all the three numbers (male and female births, and
deaths) right in a single guess is one in 438,770,108. . . .
Since the successful competitor made only 252 guesses, it was extremely un-
likely that he should have got one of them right (the chance being one in 1,740,-
ocx>) ; while the chance against some one of the total 100,000 guesses said to have
been sent in being correct (assuming that the guesses were all different, which
they probably were not) was 5,000 to one. (p. 329).
This seems like an event with an infinitesimal probability actually
occurring, and if the limit of chance is calculated from this unusual prob-
ability by the formulae customary for the more usual probabilities of a
single occurrence, the actual success exceeds the limit of chance some 17
times. Although when the aggregate number of guesses is considered.
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THE INFINITESIMAL PROBABILITY 353
the probability of some one guess being right is not entirely negligible,
the event itself is striking enough.
Besides the unusual occurrences, like those just enumerated, the im-
probability of which can be fairly accurately determined, we find in the
literature the record of perhaps even more striking events in daily life
the infinitesimal probability of which is supposed to be patent. And
since these belong to precisely the class of events accepted almost every-
where as proof of supernormal or even supernatural causes, it may be
worth our while to inspect some of these cases, all of which will prob-
ably be immediately granted to be fortuitous ; i. e,, as depending entirely
upon chance.
We may begin the list with the following coincidences which were re-
ported by Miss Johnson :*^*
London, January 21, 1898.
(7) Dr. M. and the undersigned H. W. B. are brothers-in-law. Dr. M. re-
sides and practices in London ; H. W. B. lives in a suburb, but is engaged in busi-
ness in the city. In December, 1897, he was temporarily staying with his brother-
in-law Dr. M. The undersigned J. T. H., an Australian on a short visit to London,
was detained there by illness. He had not previously known Dr. M. or H. W. B.,
but in November, 1897, he made the acquaintance of Dr. M., who, on account of the
ill-health of J. T. H., was kind enough to invite him to stay at his house. In De-
cember, J. T. H. went to stay with Dr. M., and there for the first time met H. W. B.
It transpired in conversation that H. W. B. and J. T. H.
(i) Were both bom on May 13, 1858;
(2) Their christening was in each case delayed until the completion of a new
church, one church being in England, the other in Australia;
(3) At that time (December, 1897) they each occupied a house (one in
England, the other in Australia) which house in each case consisted of two small
cottages knocked into one by connecting doorways.
[Signed] Herbert Wh^ord Brett.
J. T. Hackett.
Mr. Hackett is an Associate S. P.R. He is an old friend of mine, and gave
me the above account orally, and afterwards wrote it out at my request. — R.
Hodgson, (p. 199).
(8) From a country house, some years ago, we drove over, a large party, to
some distant ironworks. During our walk round them we had to stand for a while
by a little railway waiting for an engine to get out of the way. Whilst we did so
I asked a man of the party who had only arrived the evening before whether he
had ever been on an engine. I forget what he said, but I remember expatiating on
the fun of driving one — an accomplishment I had lately practiced. He seemed con-
futed, and some elderly ladies who were listening looked shocked, which I fear
piompted me to enlarge on the topic On the way back he confided to me that
this was the anniversary of his wife's death. She had died that day three years
ag'o. In the evening I repeated this to our hostess, who then told me the cause of
«oi Proceedings S. P. /?., 1899, 14: I93 ff.
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354 INDUCTIVE PROBABILITY
her death. It appeared that once indeed the poor man had been on an engine and
it was with his wife. It had overturned going round a curve, and his wife was
crushed to death beneath it. (p. 200).
(9) April 22, 1898.
Dear Sir: — ^Having been at the meeting this afternoon, at Westminster Town
Hall, I write to tell you about a further coincidence in connection with one of the
examples recorded by Miss Shuttleworth (No. 8). The gentleman with whom
Miss Shuttleworth spoke upon the subject of driving engines was, I feel almost
sure, my father. The lady who lost her balance while rounding a comer, and who
was killed on the spot, was my mother! It was quite a chance my being at the
meeting this afternoon, as I am not a member of the Society, and it will probably
be the only meeting I shall be able to attend this year, as I live altogether in
Ireland. On coming back here this afternoon I said to my father, "Did you ever
meet a Miss Shuttleworth ?" and on hearing he had done so, I proceeded to tell him
of this afternoon's meeting. He says he remembers having spoken to Miss S. about
engines. . . .
April 25. 1898.
. . .It was either in '71 or '72, My mother was on a small traction engine built
by her cousins, the present Lord and his brothers, and in turning a corner, she
put up her hand to steady her hat, and in so doing, she lost her balance and fell off
the engine — ^being killed on the spot.
I thought it odd the other day that this should be alluded to at the one meet-
ing of the year at which I happened to be present, and that the subject of the meet-
ing should be "Coincidences." (p. 202).
Cases 8 and 9 together, as their contents show, are very curious,
and recall an experience recorded by Professor Jastrow. He had just
stated a generalization to the effect that coincidences in a certain field
become remarkably frequent as a result of a strong interest in that
direction :*^*
(10) Some years ago I became interested in cases of extreme longevity, par-
ticularly of centenarianism, and for some months every conversation seemed to
lead to this topic, and every magazine and newspaper offered some new item about
old people. Nowadays my interest is transferred to other themes; but the para-
grapher continues quite creditably to meet my present wants, and the centenarians
have vanished. When I am writing about coincidences, I become keen to observe
them; such for example as this: I was reading for the second time an article on
"Mental Telegraph/' (by Mark Twain in Harper's Monthly Magazine, December,
i8pi) : I was occupied with what is there described as a most wonderful coinci-
dence, the nearly simultaneous origination by the author and by Mr. William H.
Wright of a similar literary venture, — ^when I happened to take my eyes from the
page and saw on my desk a visiting-card bearing the name, "W. H. Wright." It
was not the same W. H. Wright, but a gentleman whom I had met for the first
time a few hours before, and have not seen since. Had I not been especially in-
terested in this article and its subject, the identity of the names would certainly
have escaped my attention, and there would have been no coincidence to record,
(p. 89).
*o* Jastrow : Fact and Fable in Psychology. Boston, 1900.
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THE INFINITESIMAL PROBABILITY 355
The following three cases were quoted by Miss Johnson :*®* the first
from The Spectator (August 27, 1898) ; the second from "Over the Tea-
cups," by Oliver Wendell Holmes (3d ed.. 1891, pp. 18 ff.); and the
third from Notes and Queries (1895, 8:270) :
(11) Waldron Rectory, Sussex, August 22d.
. . . Many years ago, when at Oxford, my father gave me as a heirloom a
ring presented to him by an old friend, and bearing an inscription stating that it
contained the hair of the Duke of Wellington. This ring I gave to my wife on our
marriage in 1876. In October, 1879, when we were 4m a visit to Mr. W. Arkwright,
of Sutton Scarsdale, my wife felt the ring slip off her finger at the dinner-table,
and although careful search was made, nothing more was seen or heard of it for
eighteen years, so far as we were concerned.
At the commencement of this year, however, my wife received a letter from
her half-sister (Mrs. Hodge) in New Zealand, which stated incidentally that a
church in which she was interested out there had received unexpected help some
years ago from a curious source. Her sister (Miss White) had sent out from
England at her request some gloves purchased at Bide's [a London shop], and on
trying on a pair of these gloves she, to her astonishment, found inside one of them
a ring containing the hair of the Duke of Wellington, which had evidently been
drawn off the finger unconsciously by some one trying on the glove at Bide's.
Unable to find the owner of the ring and not liking to keep it, Mrs. Hodge thought
it would be a fair thing to sell it and apply the proceeds to the church fund. She
did so and the purchaser was a Mr. Frank Arkwright, of Overton, Marston, New
Zealand, whose grandmother had given the ring to my father, and who has most
kindly replaced it in my possession.
Now, here are a series of coincidences which are only likely to happen once
in a life-time. That of all the thousands of people who purchase gloves my
wife's half-sister should have lighted upon this particular pair and, unknown to
herself and to Bide, should have sent out this ring in them to her sister in the
Antipodes, and that there it should have been recovered in the house of a cousin
of the Mr. Arkwright in whose house it had been lost eighteen years ago, surely
goes to show that sometimes, at .any rate, truth is stranger than fiction. As a
minor coincidence I may perhaps mention that the letter which, by the merest
chance, happened to mention the finding of the ring, was dated from Wellington, in
New Zealand. I am, sir, etc., W. J. Humble-Crofts.
(12) One evening while I was living in Charles Street, I received a call from
Dr. S., a well-known and highly respected Boston physician, a particular friend of
the late Alexander H. Stephens, vice-president of the Southern Confederacy. It
was with reference to a work which Mr. Stephens was about to publish that Dr. S.
called upon me. After talking that matter over we got conversing on other sub-
jects, among the rest a family relationship existing between us, — not a very near
one, but one which I think I had seen mentioned in genealogical accounts. Mary
S. (the last name being the same as that of my visitant), it appeared, was the
great-great-grandmothcr of Mrs. Holmes and myself. After cordially recognizing
our forgotten relationship, now for the first time called to mind, we parted, ray
^Proceedings S.P.R., 1899, 14:227-8, 278-9, 226.
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356 INDUCTIVB PROBABILITY
guest leaving me lor hit own home. We had been sitting in taj library on the
lower floor. On going upstairs where Mrs. H<^mes was sitting alone, just as I
entered the room she pushed a paper across the table towards me, saying that per>
haps it might interest me. It was one of a number of M family papers which she
had brought from the house of her mother, recently deceased.
I opened the paper, which was an old-looking document, and found that it was
a copy, perhaps made in this century, of the will of that same Mary S., about whom
we had been tafidng downstairs. s
If there is such a thing as a purely accidental coincidence, this must be con-
sidered an instance of it. All that one can say about it is that it seems very unlikdy
that such a coincidence should occur, but it did.
(13) 49, Edith Road, West Kensington, W.
. . . Christmas, 1893, I spent at Southsea. One day I wanted to get some
envelopes of a somewhat unusual size. I tried some dozen stationers' shops in the
town, but not one could supply me. I gave up my quest in despair and was return-
ing home to dinner. I had nearly reached the top of Palmerston Road when I saw
a small parcel lying on the pavement. I picked it up, and, as it bore no printed ad-
dress of a shop, I took it back with me to my apartments. You may judge my
astonishment when, on opening it, I found it to contain a packet of twenty-five
envelopes of the precise size for which I had fruitlessly enquired ! My sister, who
was with me at the time, can vouch for the truth of this incident.
Chas. Jas. Fftnr.
The following case has just occurred to the writer:
(14) While preparing the manuscript on this section dealing with Inductive
Probability, the writer met with an experience which may be regarded as more or
less remarkable. He had filled in the numbers in Fig. 5* and had just finished
filling in, in India ink, the alternate compartments down to the o, in order to des-
ignate what compartments are black, when he was confronted with a serious dif-
ficulty. The compartments he understood to alternate black and red; but if o is
made black, there are two adjacent compartments black, and if made red, there are
two adjacent compartments red. He laid down his pen, went home (on the cam-
pus) to lunch, and remarked on his dilemma to his wife. She instantly replied:
"Why don't you go down into the cellar, look at the Roulette wheel, and find out?^
"Roulette wheel I in the cellar?" "I think it must be a Roulette wheel." Sure
enough I A strange piece of furniture unearthed in the cellar proved to be a
Roulette wheel, made in Chicago, having 38 compartments. Zero is green !
How the Roulette wheel came to be in his cellar, the writer at the risk of his
reputation will refrain from explaining, except to intimate that the causes (how-
ever improbable in themselves) were neither supernormal nor related to his draw-
ing. He is satisfied with the statement of the problem: What is the probability
that an assistant professor of psychology who gets into trouble over the color of a
Roulette zero will find in an hour's time, not only within the Puritanic precincts of
his university, but in his own cellar, a Roulette wheel that resolves his riddle?
The following brief report of a "double-barrelled" coincidence was
♦ Shown on p. 328, supra.
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THE INFINITESIMAL PROBABILITY 357
sent to the writer by Dr. W. W. Campbell,*^ director of the Lick Ob-
servatory :
(15) Perrine of our staff discovered his first comet, and in dne time it dis-
appeared behind the sun. A few weeks later a German astronomer re-observed it
(we had already been observing it again for fifteen days) and sent us a cablegram
announcing the position of Perrine's first comet The cablegram came correctly,
but our astronomer who received it made a mistake in translating degrees and
minutes of right ascension into hours and minutes of right ascension, and the er-
roneous position was handed to Perrine. Perrine looked at the erroneous position
the next morning just before daylight and there was a comet in the field of view.
This turned out to be a new comet, one that nobody had ever seen before. The new
comet was traveling on the face of the sky at high speed, and if Perrine had
looked at that point on the morning before or the morning after, or any other
morning, it would have been far outside the field of view and might have come
and gone totally unseen. It was a sort of double-barrelled coincidence.*^
The chance of a miscalculation locating a point in the path of a comet,
and an unknown one, is certainly very small; and the chance that the
swiftly-moving comet should occupy that position at the moment Astron-
omer Perrine made his observation is certainly infinitesimal.
Another coincidence to occur to an astronomer, which for sheer
downright mischance can scarcely be excelled, has been quoted from De
Morgan by Proctor :***
(16) An old woman came to Flamsteed, the first Astronomer-Royal, to ask
him whereabouts a certain bundle of linen might be, which she had lost Flam-
steed determined to show the folly of that belief in astrology which had led her
to Greenwich Observatory (under sonae misapprehension as to the duties of an
Astronomer-Royal). He "drew a circle, put a square in it, and gravely pointed out
^^ To whom the writer hereby acknowledges his obligations.
«•• A more detailed report will be found in Science, 1917, 46 : 36-37, which had
not yet been issued at the time the above text was written. A minor coincidence
in connection with Comet a 1896 is also worth noting, since it points to the de-
pendence of the frequency of coincidence upon interest in this direction to which
Jastrow has called attention. This Comet was discovered in February, 1896; the
coincidence involved was reported in The Observatory in 1903 (26:293-4) and not
likely to become generally known ; I first heard of it at a dinner to psychologists,
April 7, 1917. Early in July I was working on the text on coincidences and wrote
to Dr. Campbell on July 8th a&king for details and begging him to publish them in
some general scientific journal. In his reply Dr. Campbell summarized the story,
and said that three or four weeks earlier he had read proof on the article which
later appeared in the July 13th number of Science, That my need for the coinci-
dence should occur when the article prepared for the public was in type for the
first time after a delay of twenty-one years is remarkable; and it is no less re-
markable that my appeal to Dr. Campbell to publish his story should reach him
after he had read proof on it and just before it appeared.
«o« Proctor: Chance and Luck. 1889, p. 195-
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358 INDUCTIVE PROBABILITY
a ditch, near her cottage, in which he said it would be found." He then waited
until she should come back disappointed, and in a fit frame of mind to receive the
rebuke he intended for her; but "she came back in great delight, with the bundle
in her hand, found in the very place."
The following case was quoted by Tuckett from the (London)
Daily Graphic (September 7, 1905) :^^
(17) Sir: — ^Among many strange coincidences which I have experienced in
my time, one of the most singular which I can recall at the moment hs^pened to
me in connection with a play which I wrote some twenty years ago for the Ger-
man Reed entertainment. One of my characters was named Robert Golding, and
for the requirements of the plot I had made him the sole survivor of the crew of
a ship called the Caroline, which had been lost at sea. A few days after the pro-
duction of the play I read in a newspaper an account of the shipwreck of a vessel
named the Caroline, which had gone down with all hands, with one exception, and
this exception was a man of the name of Golding. Now Golding is not at all a
common name, and the circumstance of his being, both in fact and fiction, the sole
survivor of the shipwrecked Caroline, impressed me at the time as being a coinci-
dence of a very peculiar nature. Yours fctithfuUy, Arthur Law.
Is the nature of the following coincidence, offered by Mr. Beckles
Willson *•• as evidence for thought-transference, any more peculiar ?
(18) A prominent Chicago journalist, Mr. F. B. Wilkie, reported that his
wife asked him one morning in October, 1885, while still engaged in dressing, and
before either of them had left their sleeping-room, if he knew anyone named
Edsale or Esdale. A negative reply was given, and then a "Why do you ask?" She
replied: "During the night I dreamt that I was on the lake-shore and found a
coffin there, with the name of Edsale or Esdale on it, and I am confident that
someone of that name has recently been drowned there." On opening his morn-
ing paper, the first item that attracted his attention was the report of the mys-
terious disappearance from his house in Hyde Park of a young man named
Esdale. A few days afterwards the body of a young man was found on the lake-
shore.
Or is this case, which was reported by Bertram W. B. Greene ? *®*
(19) Paris, December 4, 1895.
In August, 1889, Mrs. S. was staying at Newcastle, New Hampshire, U. S. A.
One night she dreamed that she received a letter, in an unknown handwriting,
stating that she had been left a bequest of $5»ooo, but that she would not receive
it immediately, owing to certain legal formalities. Mrs. S. remembers that the let-
ter caused her pain in her dream, as the only person likely to leave her money was
one of her brothers, of whom she was very fond. The dream was very vivid.
On waking, her breakfast was brought into her room, while Mr. S. went
downstairs to eat his. A short time after, he returned with a letter, the envelope
«o^ Tuckett: The Evidence for the Supernatural. London, 191 1, p. 120.
sot Willson : Occultism and Common-Sense. London, 1908, p. 65.
«<>• louma! S. P. R„ 1896, 7 : 257-8.
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THE INFINITESIMAL PROBABILITY 359
of which was addressed in Mrs. S/s sister's handwriting. On opening the en-
velope, two sheets fell out. One of them Mrs. S. immediately recognized as com-
ing from her sister; the other was in an unknown handwriting, and Mrs. S.
picked it up and looked over it without unfolding it. Suddenly she caught sight
of the figures $5,ooo in the text of the letter. She let it fall with the exclamation :
"Why, I dreamed that !" Mr. S. states that the expression of her face was one of
extreme as«.onishment.
On reading the letter, it was found that an uncle of Mrs. S., who had died
six months before, had requested that she should be given $5,ooo. She never ex-
pected anything from him at his death, as he had four children. The money could
not be given her for some time, owing to legal formalities. She had not been in-
formed of the request before, owing to the aforesaid formalities.
BERTitAii W. B. Greene.
These last two cases are inserted as typical evidence of supernormal
causes, for the purpose of showing their similarity to the preceding coin-
cidences, and their consequent imrehability as indications of anything
beyond chance. Sometimes this fact is sufficiently realized by students of
coincidences to lead them to generalize it so that it also covers the cases
in which the emotional element associated with consanguinity is the
typical index of the supernormal nature of the phenomenon:**®
(20) In another dream I found myself, without surprise, seated in a
Protestant church, notwithstanding that I had some years before become a Cath-
olic, but I thought I was greatly concerned in keeping the place next me for a
friend who was to join me there. To my dismay, a gentleman came, "without
with your leave, or by your leave," and established himself in this place in a per-
emptory manner. I turned round with the intention of evicting the intruder,
though my hints had no effect upon him, but in doing so I observed that he was
Canon Kingsley. The next morning the first event that caught my eye in the news-
paper was the announcement of Canon Kingsley's death. Now, I knew no more
of Canon Kingsley than of the Shah of Persia; I had seen both in public, and I
had read a book by each, and there my acquaintance ended. I had not been think-
ing or talking about him. It could only have been a kaleidoscopic mixing up of
images in the brain — ^yet, had it been some particularly dear friend whom I had
thought I felt placing himself so unexpectedly by my side, and had that friend also
died tmknown to me the day before, it would have been said by all ghost-believing
people that it was the actual spirit of the dear departed. As this was certainly no
apparition of the sort, I argue that in the cases where the condition of affection
enters into the details of the case, they are yet nothing more than fortuitous coin-
cidences either.
But perhaps the most overpowering character of a coincidence is the
inclusion of a number of coincidental factors. It may be recalled that
Mark Twain, concerning the coincidence alluded to in Case lo above,*"
said:*"
^^^ Journal 5. P./?., 1885, 1:230.
"1 Supra, p. 354.
*^^ Harper's Monthly Magazine, December 1891, 84:97.
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360 IN0UCTIVS nOBABILXTY
Neceisarily this could not come by accident, such daborate accidents cannot
happen. Qiance might have duplicated one or two of the details but she would
have broken down on the rest I cannot doubt— there is no tenable reason for
doubting— that Mr. Wright's mind and mine had been in close and crystal-dear
communication with each other across 3000 miles of mountain and desert on the
morning of the 2d of March.
In support of a widely operative "Mental Telegraphy" he instances
the independent simultaneous inventions and literary creations ; such as,
the telegraph by (i) Henry, (2) Wheatstone, (3) Morse, and (4) a Ger-
man in Munich ; the theory of evolution by Darwin and Wallace ; Miss
Alcott's novel, "Moods," which had to be extensively revised because its
plot and its leading characters (even to names) were too similar to Miss
Crane's "Emily Chester," which was in press ; Voltaire's "Candide" and
Johnson's "Rasselas" ; and then queries :
Is it not possible that inventors are constantly and unwittingly stealing each
other's ideas whilst they stand thousands of miles asunder? (p. 98).
The primary question to settle is whether this particular extra-
chance cause is operative. Until that fact is established to the satisfac-
tion of science, the possibility of its operation is a remote consideration.
Now, of course, the only method of solving the question is by tabulation
of coincidences ; and if reliance is placed upon cases with an infinitesimal
probability we must be sure, in the first place, that chance is not the sole
cause, and, in the second place, that all other extra-chance causes are
eliminated. Neither of these requirements is met in Mark Twain's "elab-
orate" coincidence.
Before bringing together our argument on the fallacy of the in-
finitesimal probability, let us examine an elaborate coincidence which is
to be attributed to chance causes alone, and then consider some of the
extra-chance causes which cannot be eliminated from the type of cases
most conunonly accepted as evidence for supernormal causes.
The following "elaborate" coincidence was communicated some
thirty-eight years ago by Dr. George M. Beard :**•
(21) The first letter is a so-called "April-foor letter, as the date suggests,
and is wholly imaginative. It was written for amusement purely, and obtained a
very different reply from what was expected.
The author of the communication is a well-known merchant of this dty, and
a friend of mine. The person who replied is also well known in the region where
he resides.
This coincidence is certainly one of the most remarkable of any recorded in
the history either of logic or of delusions.
*^* George M. Beard: A remarkable coincidence. The Popular Science
Monthly, iQ79^ iS:6aBS.
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THE INFINITESIMAL PROBABILITY 361
202 Columbia Heights, Brooklyn, April i, 1879.
My Dear Sister Velina: You will no doubt be somewhat surprised to receive
a letter from me, but J have a little matter of business, and if you will attend to it
you will place me under obligations to your good self.
Some time ago a man by the name of John Nasium lived in New York. His
father was a Southerner, and died last summer of yellow fever. . . .
This John Nasium seems to have been the black sheep of the family, and
when he left New York he did not leave a very good record behind him. He
went from here to Toledo, Ohio, and afterward, we hear, he went to Tecumseh,
Michigan, no doubt thinking that in a quiet country place he would be more se-
cluded than he could be in a city. I and several of my friends would like to get
track of him, if it can be done quietly, and without exciting any suspicion. He may
have changed his name, and so I will describe the man, as nearly as I can, which
may be some help to you. . . He is rather tall, weighing about 180 pounds, I should
think. He stoops a little, and is slightly lame in the left 1^. You would not ob-
serve his lameness, unless you were to pay particular attention to him while walk-
ing. His hair is a dark sandy color, in fact almost a red, and his side-whiskers
are almost the same color, but a little darker. He is about thirty-eight years of
age, but really does not look over thirty. His eyes are a very dark brown, and the
left eye looks a little peculiar, i. e,, unlike the other— looks as if some time or an-
other a cataract had been removed by an operation. To look at him, you wouM
at once see a di£Ference in his eyes, and yet I cannot describe the difference any
better than I have done. While he lived here he usually wore his hair rather long,
and carried himself in a style peculiar to the Southerner.
Now, perhaps the best and most prudent way for you to do would be for 3rou
to go up and read this letter to Uncle Hiram first. He is a very careful, discreet
man, and he can make inquiries and excite less suspicion than you could.
I am real sorry to make you any trouble, and much less Uncle Hiram, but
this is a matter, if it can be properly done, which may be of considerable importance
to me and several of my friends, and perhaps further the ends of justice.
There is one other mark which may aid you, which is — ^this man was in the
rebel army, and his forefinger on his left hand was shot off. His nose is quite
prominent, and he has a very mild and quiet look, and he is the last man you would
pick out for the scoundrel he is. Yours very truly,
R. T. Bush.
P. S. — Please attend to it, and oblige.
Shortly after this letter reached its destination, Tecumseh, Mr. Bush received
a telegram stating that the man had been found, and asking if they should arrest
him. The correspondent had not observed the date of the letter, nor did he
suspect that he was reading a novel; and in a few days the following letter was
received :
Tecumseh, April 18, 1879.
Mr. R. T. Bush—
Dear Sir: Velina read to me a letter Wednesday evening from you, de-
scribing a certain man that was wanted in New York, who had recently left
Toledo for this village.
The next morning, after hearing the description, I informed our marshal of
the fact, and requested him to keep a lookout for such a man. In the course of
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362 INDUCTIVE PROBABILITY
half an hour he came to me, saying that he had just seen my man — ^with sandy
whiskers, rather tall— would weigh 170 or 180 pounds — ^wearing specs, and the
front finger of the left hand missing; and was very anxious that he should be
immediately arrested, as he was then at the livery-stable, for a saddle-horse to ride
away. I told him we had better wait and be sure that he was the one we wanted,
and also find out if we could whether you wanted him arrested, should he prove
to be the right man. I saw the man, and he answered the description so well, even
to the Anger, that I thought best to telegraph you for instructions. The marshal,
in the meantime, was to keep his eye on him (as he failed to get a horse). Seeing
him walk down to dinner with one of our townsmen, the first opportunity he made
some inquiries of this townsman, and found that he was not the man — that he was
the cousin of this man that took him to dinner, and was brother to a Mrs. Palmer,
whom he was visiting — that he lives in South Qeveland, Ohio, and is a lawyer by
profession.
That he answered the description, both in size and the loss of the finger, as
well as the color of his whiskers, there could be no doubt. Wearing specs we
supposed was to hide the defects of that eye you mentioned, and he looked as
though his side-whiskers had recently been cut or shaved ; but if, as we were told,
his home is in Qeveland, and his name is Hick, why of course we were deceived
in the matter. And, if his friend has not informed him, he is still ignorant of our
suspicions.
Now, as this is my first experience in the detective business, you will pardon
the blunder.
Hoping that it has put you to no inconvenience, I remain yours, etc.,
H. Raymond.
The one striking feature of this coincidence is of course the loss of the fore-
finger in the left hand.
Both the imagined and the real case possessed this very exceptional peculiar-
ity. This is a subject on which statistics can not be gained; but it is certain that
in the whole continent not a small roomful could be found possessing precisely this
deformity at the age specified; and it may well be doubted whether in the whole
world there is another person thus mutilated and at the same time possessing all
the general physical characteristics of the individual described in the letter.
More striking still is the fact that this individual did not reside in the place
where the letter was sent (which is not a large place), and was there by chance
only the day that the letter reached there.
Those who believe that the mathematical doctrine of chances can solve the
complex problems of coincidences will find in this case material for consideration.
... It is to be recognized that coincidences of the most extraordinary character
and astonishing nature are liable to occur at any instant, and that they are as likely
to occur on the first trial as on the last of a long series.
A second point of great psychological interest in this case is the attempt made
by the person to whom the letter was addressed to overlook certain discrepancies
between the imaginary and real individual, and to twist and pervert and reason
upon the facts of the case, so as to bring them into harmony with what he was
expecting to see. While the man corresponded to the description in size, in the
color of his whiskers, and especially in the loss of his finger, he did. not corre-
spond in the fact that he wore spectacles and had no side-whiskers. The detective
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THE INFINITESIMAL PROBABILITY 363
reasoned that he wore spectacles to hide the defect in the eye, which defect he did
not see; and he assumed, on thought, that the side- whiskers had been recently
shaved or cut. Nothing is said of his stooping, or of his being lame in the left
leg, or of the color of his hair, or of its length.
The bearings of this whole history on the delusions of clairvoyance and mind-
reading are apparent. ... A successful coincidence of this kind would have made
fortune and favor for any clairvoyant or mind-reader.
From this exhibit of coincidences, which could be indefinitely ex-
tended, one might reasonably infer that chance is not only capable of
providing, but is constantly providing, coincidences which have an in-
finitesimal probability, and his inference would be in accord with the law
of chances which provides for the occurrence of such events, in any given
series of indefinite length, some time or other. Within our field of ob-
servation there is an indefinite number of series of indefinite length in
constant process; the infinitesimally probable events in the aggregate of
these various series may be expected to occur frequently. "The im-
probable is to be expected in its proper proportion." Consequently, as
long as the series in which the event is expected to occur is not specified,
or the probability of occurrence of the event cannot be calculated, nothing
can be inferred from the frequency of such events.
Let the series be designated, and if the frequency of occurrence is
beyond the limit of chance deviation, some evidence for an extra-chance
cause is adduced. But many other causes, besides telepathy or lucidity
or communication from excarnate intelligences, are known to be present,
in the most typical illustrations of supernormal causes, and unless they
are excluded the evidence is inconclusive.
Conmion associations, conmion characteristics in mental processes
(such as inference), common interests, and common desires and ideals,
are all potent factors working for startling coincidences. Had Mark
Twain's "remarkable'' coincidence been even more remarkable than purely
chance coincidences which have occurred, these causes would yet stand
in the way of his precipitate interpretation in favor of thought-transfer-
ence ; and the same may be said of most of the coincidences recorded as
evidence for supernormal causes.
Let us examine again a case at hand which illustrates how the force
of common associations of ideas among strangers may raise an event
from an infinitesimal to a high probability.
If three given ideas (expressed by single words) have occurred to the
minds of i6o persons, what is the chance that there will be a coincidence
in the 4th, sth, or 6th ideas which occur in these 160 respective minds?
On the assumption that there are only 160.000 available ideas, ^ =
Keo^ooo = .000,006,25, — an infinitesimal probability. And if in each of
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364 INDUCTIVE PROBABILITY
the three aggregates of ideas i6o ideas are expressed, the probability of a
coincidence by chance remains the same for each aggregate. We should
expect a coincidence in looo aggregates. In our word-association ex-
periment,*" in which these conditions were fulfilled, there were 93 coin-
cidences on one word in the first aggregate, which shows in that par-
ticular case a probability of ^%60=S8; and 18 on another word,
making on two words alone, p = .69. Similarly, neglecting all coinci-
dences except those made on the two most frequent words, for the sec-
ond aggregate ps=ag; and for the third ag^egate ^ = .19. Or, if we
consider the number of separate responses in each agg^gate, we should
expect 160 separate and distinct ideas in each aggregate if chance alone
was operative in determining the responses, the chance for coincidence
being pt=z (i6o-i6o)/i6o = o. But the total number of words used in
the aggregates we found to be not 160, but 35, 68, and 89, respectively,
making the respective chances for coincidence, ^ = .78, ^ = .58, p
= .44, — very substantial probabilities.
Coincidences in daily life eflFected by conmion mental processes
could be recounted in numbers. Here are but two taken at random; the
first from Royce's "Report on Phantasms and Presentiments," *" the sec-
ond from an article by F. W. H. Myers :*"
(i) On the day of Mr. Lincoln's address at Gettysburg, I was waOdng at
about the time when, as I supposed, the exercises were taking place. Remembering
this I tried to invent such a speech as Mr. Lincoln, or I in his place, would prob-
ably deliver. I was astonished the next morning to find that I had duplicated his
address, from the third or fourth sentence to the end; and to the passage "It is
for us the living rather to be dedicated" I had given almost exactly the words.
(2) While this paper is passing through the press I have received Hellen-
bach's just published "Geburt und Tod" (Vienna, 1885), in which conclusions much
resembling these are advocated, with some singular, even verbal, cmncidences with
an article on "Automatic Writing" which I published in the Contemporary Review
for February last, and which Herr Hellenbach cannot possibly have seen. That
two persons should independently hit on so bisarre a metaphor as "a blue and a
yellow consciousness," might seem an impossible chance; but see Contemporary
Review, 1885, p. 234; and "Geburt und Tod," p. 66.
All these psychological causes for coincidence are, of course, greatly
magnified among friends and relatives, because of conmion training, com-
mon experiences, common interests, and common hopes and desires.
The influence of these causes upon coincidences that have an in-
finitesimal probability is but a special case of their influence upon judg-
ment, already considered under the head of "Explanatory Considera-
*^^ Supra, p. 307.
*^^ Proceedings Am,S.P.R., i88g, Series I, 1:373.
«!• Proceedings S. P. R., 1885, 3 : 27, footnote.
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THE INFINITESIMAL PROBABILITY 365
tions" **^ and "Application of Mental Habit to Experiments in Thought-
Transference," *** and it is sufficient to our present purpose if we insist
that here (where the probability of an event is infinitesimal) as elsewhere
it must be eliminated from the data which receive statistical treatment in
search for supernormal causes.
It is d>vious, too, but it cannot be too clearly realized, that the data
std>jected to statistical treatment must be free from all the errors result-
ing from the fallibility of human testimony, including mal-observation '^*
and the tricks of memory *** on the part of the original observer. Coin-
cidences in daily life, such as have been enumerated above (from No. 7
to No. 21) and their analogues in the field of psychical phenomena, are
not adapted to statistical enquiry, partly for this reason, and partly for the
reason stated in the preceding paragraph, but principally because the
probability of occurrence cannot be calculated and, consequently, no one
can tell how frequently they ought to occur by chance.
The fallacies underlying a reliance upon events with an infinitesimal
probability as evidences of supernormal causes therefore are as follows:
1. The events most frequently cited are striking coincidences in daily life sub-
ject to the errors due to the fallibility of human testimony, and to the operation of
normal extra-chance causes; their theoretical expectation cannot be calculated, and
their frequency cannot be known to exceed the frequency prescribed by the law of
chances. Owing to the errors which they include, their frequency may be ex-
pected to be high.
2. When the event permits a fair estimation of the probability of occurrence,
but may belong to any one of many classes of events, the frequency of its occur-
rence is likely to be regarded in relation to its own undesignated series (when its
probability is infinitesimal) instead of in relation to the many classes of events
comprehended within the field of observation (when its probability is appreciable).
These events are to some degree comparable to Cases No. 4 and No. 6, above.
3. Since an extra-chance cause is indicated by a definite deviation of the em-
pirical frequency from the theoretical frequency, the limitation in frequency imposed
by the infinitesimal probability restricts the numbers in the pertinent ratio to such a
degree that the ratio is unnecessarily unreliable.***
The disabilities of the procedure with an infinitesimal probability
are removed by adopting a more favorable procedure in which the follow-
ing conditions are met:
I. The events subjected to statistical treatment are not contributed by testi-
mony, but are observations recorded by a competent observer, as scientific method
demands, on the spot.
«" Supra, pp. a8i if.
«!• Supra, pp. api S.
«»» Cf„ Proceedings S, P. R„ 1886-7, 4 : 38i-49S ; i85>2, 8 : a53-3ia
"«C/., The Judge Hornby Case: Nineteenth Century, 16:89-91, 851-3.
wi C/., supra, pp. 332.3.
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366 INDUCTIVE PROBABILITY
2. The events are not "selected.** They are all of the events of their class that
were observed to occur, and their observation was not directed by interest in only
a part of their class.
3. The probability of occurrence of a single event in the class is known a
priori. It is not small, — never infinitesimal; preferably less than .5 and more than
.025, or within these limits, including both, as in the guessing of the color, and of
the complete card, when a set of 40 playing cards (court cards eliminated) is used.
4. The number of trials in a set inspected for R cases might vary from 10 to
1000 or more; the smaller set being preferable when a "distribution" of R cases
is to be inspected.
5. The same results should be inspected in sets varying in size, for per cent
of R cases, and for a distribution of the R cases in the various sets of the same
size. The formulae given in Past I are applicable for testing for an extra-chance
cause.
It may be seen that the experiments in Part I meet these require-
ments, and perhaps the best conditions are afforded in the guessing of
playing-cards. If the R guesses on the individual card, on the color, on
the number of spots, and on the suit, are tabulated separately, the prob-
ability varies as follows: .025, .5, .1, .25; and should an extra-chance
cause be fotmd its association with color or number or form could be
tested. If "control" experiments are provided, as they were in our ex-
periments, in such a way that the reagent or percipient can not distinguish
a "control" experiment from a "regular" experiment, and an extra-chance
cause is found, its dependence upon the knowledge in the experimenter's
mind could be determined. The further variation in the conditions, as in
our card experiments, would permit an immediate psychological analysis
competent to throw light upon the nature of any extra-chance cause that
should be found.
The card experiment, as described in Part I,*** is commended as a
most suitable means of acquiring data which, if treated with the form-
ulae derived from the theory of probability, must certainly resolve the
controversy and doubt concerning the alleged phenomena of thought-
transference, lucidity (clairvoyance), or the communication of discamate
personalities capable of knowing facts in our world.
"» The Guessing of Playing-Cards, pp. 48 flF., supra.
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PART IV.
EXPERIMENTS
IN
SOUND ASSIMILATION
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There he could sit receiving orders— m it seemed to
him—to pidc up a hymn-book, find out the hymn and
take part in the singing verse by verse while the in-
visible choir were singing most heavenly above him. It
was especially the fine strong hymns which were sung
to him while he in his book followed up every word
with his finger.— BjOBNSOM in "Wise-Knut," pp. 29-30,
In the ordinary hearing of speech half the words
we seem to hear are supplied out of our own head. —
Jamxs, in "The Principles of Psychology," voL II, p. 3a3.
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PART IV.
SOUND ASSIMILATION.
INTRODUCTION.
To those who wish to eliminate all sources of error from the proof of
the alleged supernormal phenomena, such as the subliminal tapping of
thoughts or forgotten memories of a "sitter" at a 'stance', as the tapping
of a cosmic reservoir of knowledge, or as the reception of verbal com-
munications from discamate personalities, there is a highly important
consideration, long known to experimental psychologists, but nowhere, so
far as the writer knows, subjected to rigorous and straightforward in-
vestigation, which involves a deception of the ear in apprehending vocal
language. It is an illusion resulting from the psychological process of
'assimilation' to which perception through each of the special senses is
subject; and since it applies in this case to the perception of vocal
language we may call the general phenomenon into which we wish to in-
quire "the assimilation of sound in the perception of English speech," or,
briefly, "Sound Assimilation."
This error might also be included under the broad term of "Mal-
observation," a matter of serious discussion and of experimental investi-
gation in psychical research, especially since the observations of Professor
and Mrs. Sidgwick,* the report by Professor William James,* and the
classical experiments with Mr. S. J. Davey conducted by Dr. Richard
Hodgson.* In the work already done, much has been learned concerning
the possibility of erroneous inferences from the sensations of sight and
touch, especially in the dark stance where they commonly receive stimuli
of only minimal intensity. But the possibility of erroneous inferences
from minimal auditory stimuli, especially when these stimuli purport to
be language, has been almost completely overlooked, in spite of the
» Proceedings S. P. R., 1886, 4 : 62-74, 99» 103 ; 1889, 6 : 4, 5.
* Report of the Committee on Mediumistic Phenomena. Proceedings Am,S.
P. R., 1887, Series I, i : 230-6.
* Hodgson : The possibilities of mal-observation and lapse of memory from a
practical point of view. Proceedings S.P.R., 1887, 4:381-495; 1892, 8:253-310.
369
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370 SOUND ASSIMILATION
fact that much striking evidence for the alleged supernormal phenomena
mentioned above rests upon the testimony of observers who were exposed
to this type of error. A couple of illustrations will make this clear, and
in order to avoid seeming to impeach any particular testimony (which of
course may be free from the error), we shall make them hjrpothetical :
(i) A sitter in a seance where discamate personalities purport to
speak through a 'trumpet' or in an 'independent* voice, will often hear
the names announced by the speaker in so weak and indefinite a voice or
whisper, that they are indistinguishable. To a given sitter, however, the
sound suggests a familiar name, that of a late friend or relative. It may
be a very unusual name. The suggestion is so strong and has come
so unexpectedly that the name is recognized, and the veritable pres-
ence of the discamate friend is confidently attested. Other names
of mutual friends may follow in the same way and meet a like recogni-
tion, effecting so strong a semblance of free communication with a friend
that the sitter is overwhelmed with the sense of the super-normal. There
was no "pumping" on the part of the medium ; there "was no guessing" ;
the sitter "gave no information" ; he was a complete stranger to the medi-
um, who could not therefore "consult a blue-book" ; yet his unseen com-
municant knew every member of his circle of discamate and incarnate
friends ! Supposing the sitter was not in a highly emotional state, and
did not have a strong expectation of any particular names before the
names were recognized, to what extent was error in perception possible?
Is he safe in assuming that he can "believe his ears" ?
(2) A discamate personality purporting to be speaking through the
'medium' is often identified by a phrase, a sentence, an injunction, a quo-
tation, or a bit of song, which the sitter knows to be characteristic of the
personality purporting to be present. What risk does the sitter take in
recognizing the words ? Often the language is in a tongue unknown to
the medium but known to the sitter. And after communication through
a tongue unknown to the medium is accepted as a fact, speech in a tongue
unknown to anyone present is often accepted as evidence of the 'control'
of some discamate personality to whom that tongue was native.* Assum-
ing, again, that the sitter is not in a highly emotional state, and is not
*CA, Speaking with Tongues (Podmore: Modem Spiritualism. London,
1902, vol. I, pp. 257 ff.) ; also, the Martian language of Mile. Hel^ne "Smith"
(Floumoy: From India to the Planet Mars. New York, c 1900, pp. ipsff.) and of
Mrs. "Smead" (Hyslop: Apparent subsconscious fabrication. Journal of Abnormal
Psychology, 1896, 1:202-6); and the Egyptian language of Mr. 'Xe Baron"
(William James: A case of psychic automatism, including "speaking with tongues."
Proceedings S. P. R., 1897, 12 : 277-297) •
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iNnoDucnoN 371
keenly expectant of any particular phrase, to what extent is the perception
of a phrase or sentence in English unreliable ? '
This enquiry is not so theoretical or academic as it might at first
glance seem, for it g^ew out of a practical effort to put the evidence for
a case of glossolalia (the gift of tongues) in a form that would satisfy
the demands of science. A man, who is a devout spiritualist, highly in-
telligent and with a practical turn of mind, moved with his family from a
city about a thousand miles away to a city close to Stanford University
in order to have his wife's gift examined in a scientific way. Both were
convinced that ''messages'' in both speech and song in foreign langtiages
had been delivered through her mediumship. She is intelligent, and of a
character of the highest moral type, but she knows only English. They
exhibited affidavits, sworn to before duly authorized Notary Publics, at-
testing specific instances at specified times and places. One affidavit at-
tests that the medium sang without accompaniment from the platform a
sacred song in Italian; another that she sang in the Gottland Island
language (a dialect of Swedish) a sailor's song composed by Anna John-
son, the first line of which is "Dit ingen syster gir."
They realized that the testimony rested upon the capacity of persons
who might not be regarded as competent to make scientific observations,
and they proposed having some songs and discourses in unknown tongues
recorded upon a dictaphone, which they purchased for the purpose, in
order that linguists mig^t examine the records with care. This was done,
and some of the best records were examined by linguists, but without
identification of language.*
This, then, is our immediate problem: Given the English language
spoken under conditions adequate for communication, to what extent does
perception of words depend upon the sense of hearing, to what extent
upon what the mind supplies?
Work on this problem has been carried on during four school years :
(i) With the assistance of 107 reagents, 40,500 experiments have been
performed with "words" or nonsense-syllables. The following table
B The identification of a phrase in a tongue foreign to the medium, but known
to the sitter, or a phrase in song would, of course, not be so reliable as the iden-
tification of a phrase spoken in a tongue native to both of them.
* Records have since been made which contain the unknown tongue, the name
of the personality purporting to be the speaker, or vocalist, and his translation into
English. But so far, the nationality, and the period of the personality have not
been given, and none of the tongues has been checked up by competent authority.
As soon as the language can be named by a personality who speaks a known tongue,
the records will be examined by experts in that tongue. A further problem arises,
of course, as to the adequacy of the dictaphone for this purpose.
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372 SOUND ASSIMILATION
gives the namber of reagents, the number of sets of ''words" recorded,
and the number of experiments, for the respective years :
Year Reagents Sets Experiments
Women Men Total
I9i3-t4 i8 ao 38 123 lo^ioo
1914-15 6 6 12 54 4,100
1915-16 12 IS 27 127 12,700
1916-17 30 10 30 136 isfioo
Totals $6 SI 107 440 40»500
And (2) during the last two years, with the assistance of 32 reagents
many experiments have been performed with ''simulated English text'' on
dictaphonic records.
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373
DIVISION I.— NONSENSE-SYLLABLES.
Method.
The telephone is now in wide use as a means of communication, and
its reliability is attested by the importance of the transactions (business,
social, political, etc.) which its patrons conmiit to it; and the dictaphone
is also in general use, from which typists take the dictation of business
correspondence directly upon the typewriter. These are the conditions
which we chose as "adequate for communication." To them we added
several others : (a) the perception of speech enunciated clearly in a con-
versational tone at a point 25 meters distant from the speaker, the clear
air in a long quiet room intervening; (b) the perception of speech
through a partition, or a closed door, and (c) directly across a table in a
small room.
Now, if the conununication — ^the perception of the spoken English
words— -commonly depends upon hearing all of the sounds spoken, or if
the recipient of the conmiunication can hear all of the sounds spoken, the
same sounds could be recorded without error when they are pronounced
under the same conditions, but in a hai^azard order (the recorder being
given all the time he needs for recording each syllable).
For material to use in these communications of 'scrambled' English
sounds, lists of syllables were compiled, the following first ten words of
which will show their nature :
I chain chack pav shug pu uv su ur
2 tin kaf tez duf tu uz ku uth
3 jan choom cheen gub chu un ru ut
4 sit lib kire chud ku ur ju uf
5 nap pooz fabe thul fu ub su uv
6 stawv hoongash soje tus su uj du ok
7 - sprain reeg lig vutch lu ug mu us
8 voze keeliv med kun mu ud shu uk
9 claim koong wung sut wu ung bu ur
10 kcrr chith yajd ruj yu ujd chu uj
Each list (except the second)^ is composed of 100 syllables, and dif-
^This list is composed of 50 syllables or compounds of syllables, and was
compiled at the Museum of Anthropology, Affiliated Colleges (University of Cali-
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374 SOUND ASSIMILATION
f ers in some essential respect from each other. The "chain'' list contains
58 words, the others are composed of nonsense-syllables. ''In the "pav"
and "shug" lists, each syllable begins and ends with a consonantal sound ;
in the former, the intermediate (vowel) sound is varied, in the latter, it is
imiformly the indefinite sound of "short u" (u). The "pu" and "uv"
lists are made up from the "pav" list by separating the consonant sounds
and supplying the "short u" sound ; the consonants of the former list are
all initial, of the latter, all final, as they are respectively in the "su" and
"ur" lists. In the "chain" and "chack" lists the frequency of occurrence
of the initial and final (and in the latter of the medial also) consonantal
sounds is very irregular; in the "pav," "pu," and "uv" lists the fre-
quency of the respective initial and final consonantal sounds is quite r^-
ular, but the simple sounds occur more often than the coalescent sounds
(such as pr, spl, It, nch) ; in the "shug," "su," and "ur" lists, the fre-
quency of the consonant sounds is uniform. And in the "pav," "pu,"
and "uv" lists about all of the common simple and coalescent initial and
final consonant sounds used in English are included, while in the "shug",
"su", and "ur" lists only the simple consonant sounds are included.*
The general procedure was as follows : The students were assigned
work in pairs ; each member of a pair recorded from the dictation of the
other.* Usually each student as experimenter dictated from his own list,
and as reagent recorded from a different list dictated by his partner,**
each reagent having to depend wholly upon his ear for acquaintance with
the syllables he was recording. Each pair conunonly recorded under at
least three general conditions, (i) from the dictaphone, (2) from the
telephone, and (3) through 25 meters of air-space, and in the order in-
dicated, although during the first two years some variations were tried in
order to cancel a supposed influence of practice.
Before the recording of each list was begun the adequacy of the con-
ditions for conmiunication was tested by communicating and finding them
to be satisfactory (this applies particularly to the 2S-meter air-space, and
fornia) San Francisco, for the purpose of testing the dictaphonic record as a means
of preserving Indian languages. I am indebted for this list to Dr. A. L. Kroeber,
to whom I hereby express my appreciation.
» The "pay," "shug," "su" and "ur" lists are given in Appendix A.
* This permitted a wide range of variability in the performance resulting from
the various combinations of students who spoke and who heard with varying de-
grees of efficiency. Their results, consequently, might be expected to be applicable
to the general conditions of the perception of language.
^0 One variati<m from this procedure must be noted. The lists on the dicta>
phones were all carefully dictated by the writer.
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NONSENSE-SYLLABLES
375
to partitions and closed doors ; the dictaphones and telephones were used
in the customary way and were uniformly found by test to be satisfac-
tory). The dictaphones used were of the customary commercial type, one
an Edison model, the other the Columbia, both driven by the electric light
current. The telephones were also the customary commercial instru-
ments, the dictating being done at the wall telephone in the Psychology
Library and the recording at the desk telephone in the Division of Psy-
chical Research, the connecting being done at the University central.
The following table shows the number of the various lists recorded
under the various conditions of conununication, and the number of ex-
periments performed with each list, and under each of the conditions.^^
TABLE XCIII.
Number of Lists and of Experiments.
chain chack pav pu uv shug su ur lists exp'ments
Dictaphone . — 8 lo 25 22 13 19 19 116 11200
Telephone ..23 30 32 20 20 15 14 14 168 15300
Air 9 25 24 20 20 14 14 14 140 12750
Wall I I I — — — — — 3 250
Table i 6 6 — — — — — 13 1000
Lists 34 70 73 65 62 42 47 47 440 40500
Experiments 3400 3500 7300 6500 6200 4200 4700 4700 40500
The Reagents were students, ranging from sophomores to post-
graduates, drawn from Dr. Angell's large class in General Psychology.
In Section I, we shall first display some of the results obtained under
the more varied conditions, and the results tmder the more constant con-
ditions, when the syllable recorded contained an initial and a final con-
sonantal sound; in Section II, the results obtained from recording
syllables containing an initial or a final consonantal sound.
Results.
Section i. Syllables with Initial and Final Consonantal Sounds.
"Chain" — Telephone, The "chain" list which contained 58 words
and 42 nonsense-syllables was recorded from the teleiJione by the twelve
reagents who had not heard or seen the list before. Out of the hundred
monosyllables the lowest score in number of correct records was 34, the
"The "chain," "chack," and "pav" lists were given in 1913-14; the "pav"
and "chack" lists in 1914-IS; the "pu" and "uv" lists in 1915-16; and the "shug,"
"su," and "ur" lists in 1916-17.
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376 SOUND ASSIMILATION
highest 63, the average 51.3. It was likewise recorded by nine reagents
who had dictated it through the telephone, the lowest score being 50, the
highest J2y the average 66.7.
*'Chain" — Air. It was recorded from dictation through the air (25
meters distant) by four students who had already recorded it once from
the telephone and had dictated it once. The lowest score was S7> ^^
highest 88, the average 68.5. It was also recorded from dictation through
a closed door by one student who made a score of 21, and from dictation
across a table by another who made a score of 64.
**Chack"— Telephone. In 1913-14, the "chack" list was recorded
from the telephone by twelve students who had not seen or heard the list
before, the lowest score (in per cent) being 18, the highest 64, and the
average 33; also by six students who had recorded it once before, the
lowest score being 6, the highest 60, and the average 38.3 ; and by six
students who had dictated it before, the lowest score being 32, the highest
66, and the average 47.3.
"ChacW — Air. Six students who had not recorded the list before
recorded from dictation through the air, the lowest score being 8, the
highest 48, the average 30; five students who had recorded it once before
made, lowest score 26, highest 48, average 34.4; six students after having
recorded and dictated it before, made, the lowest score 44, the highest 70,
average 57 ; and one student who had dictated it twice made 60.
In 1914-15 no student who recorded the list was permitted to see it;
but each recorded it three or four times in the following order: Dicta-
phone, Telephone, Air, Table. In comparison of the results some allow-
ance must be made for practice, since the reagents in the preceding year
who had recorded the list before made a higher average score than those
who recorded it for the first time. The advantage was about 5%, or about
17% of initial capacity. The results are shown in comparison with those
of the preceding year in the following table :
TABLE XCIV.
The "chack" list.
Dictaphone Telephone Air Table
1913-14. Nttmber of Lists — (12) (6) —
Lowest Score — 18
Highest " — 64
Average (%) -— 33
1914-15. Number of Lists (8) (5)
Lowest Score o 10
Highest " a8 40
Average (%) 9.8 26. y^y 64.7
8
48
—
3P
—
(6)
(6)
8
52
58
•fi
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NONSENSE-SYLLABLES 377
"Poi/" — Telephone. In 1913-14, the "pav" list was recorded from
the telephone by twelve students who had not previously heard or seen it,
making the lowest score of 15, the highest of 55, an average of 38.4;
also by six students who had already recorded it once, making the lowest
score of 16, the highest of 47, and an average of 34.2 ; and by nine stu-
dents who had previously recorded and dictated it, making the lowest
score of 26, the highest of 61, and an average of 41.3.
''Pea/' — Air. It was recorded from dictation through the air by six
students who had neither heard nor seen it previously, making the lowest
score of 13, the highest of 59, an average of 37 ; also by three students
who had recorded it once before, making the lowest score of 16, the high-
est of 45, an average of 30 ; and by eight students who had recorded and
dictated it previously, making the lowest score of. 45, the highest of 72, an
average of 57.5.
In 1914-15 the "pav" list was recorded only by students who had not
seen it, but most of tfiem recorded it more than once, beginning with the
dictaphone and following with the telephone, through the air, and across
a table. The averages are shown in comparison with the foregoing in
the following table :
TABLE XCV.
The "pav" list.
Dictaphone Telephone Air Table
1913-14. Number of Lists ( ) (12) (6) ( )
Lowest Score — 15 '3 —
Highest " — 55 59 —
Average " — 384 37 —
1914-15. Number of Lists (10) (5) (6) (6)
Lowest Score 5 I7 21 63
Highest " 15 45 59 79
Average " ii.i ZiJS 37.8 70.8
In 1916-17 the "shug" list (which contained only the twenty simple
consonant sounds) was recorded by students who had not seen it, taking
their records in order from dictaphone, telephone, and air, with the fol-
lowing results :
TABLE XCVI.
The "shug" list.
Dictaphone Telephone Air
Number of Lists (13) (iS) (14)
Lowest Score 3 2 7
Highest " 27 38 53
Average " 135 ^3 354
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378 SOUND ASSIMILATION
When we disregard the practice-effect of recording the lists, which
would tend to raise the average, and increase the mean variation (MV)
of the records from the telephone, air, and table, progressively, and col-
lect the results just reviewed into aggregates under the respective heads,
we get the following table which shows the number of lists, the average
per cent of correct records in a list, and the probable error (PEy* of the
average :
TABLE XCVII.
Per cent of Syllables Correct.
Dictaphone Telephone Air Table
Chack (8) 98*216 (18)36.8*2.78 (16)302*1.98 (6)64.6*2.56
Pav (10) 11.1lo.51 (23) 35^1.70 (15) 35.9*2^7 (6) 70.8t1.21
Shug (13) 13.5*3.16 (15) 203*1.68 (14) 35.4*2.51
There were 400 records (50 in a list) from the "chack" list
recorded by 8 reagents from the dictaphone, of which 9.8% were cor-
rect. The probable error of this measure is 2.16; which indicates that if
experiments continue indefinitely under these conditions we may expect
half of the averages of an equal number of lists to fall between 6.64%
and 11.96% correct records. There were 23 "pav" lists (2300 syllables)
recorded by 23 reagents from the telephone, in which 35.2% of the rec-
ords were correct. The probable error of the average is 1.70; conse-
quently should an indefinite number of returns from aggregates of 23
lists recorded from the telephone be obtained, we should expect half of
their respective averages to fall between 33.5% and 36.9% correct rec-
ords.
From this table we learn that when the reagent records syllables
which begin and end with a consonant, tmder these varying conditions all
of which were found by each reagent to be adeqtiate for conmiunication
when the sounds came in an order to make sense, his sense of hearing
enables him to get only a part of the syllables right; from the dicta-
phone less than 15%, from the telephone less than 40%, from the air less
than 40%, and across a table less than 75%. Since this is all his ear can
contribute, and since when the same sounds come in their accustomed
order he can record all of them, his record of a communication must de-
1* This probable error is reckoned on the mean variation. PE^ = .S4sMV/^n
(AfF = 0.7979a; tnde, Davenport: Statistical Methods, 3d ed., p. 116). This pro-
cedure increases slightly the effect of the smaller deviations, but reduces consider-
ably the effect of extreme deviations, and, for the purpose of the latter effect, is
consistent with Yule (Theory of Sutistics, 3d ed., p. 146).
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NONSENSE-SYLLABLES 379
pend upon what the mind contributes to the perception of the words for
the difference ; i. e., from the dictaphone his mind contributes over 85% ;
from the telephone, over 60% ; from the air, over 60% ; across the table,
over 25%.
If, then, we consider the amotmt of error in the recording of mono-
syllables^* under these conditions adequate for commtmication, as a
rough measure of the contribution which the mind makes to the percep-
tion of the words in the communication, we find the amounts in per cent
according to the respective lists, as follows :
TABLE XCVIII.
Per cent of Mental Contribtition.
Dictaphone Telephone Air Table
Chack 90:2 63.2 69.8 354
Pav 88.9 68.4 64.1 29^
Shug 86.5 79.7 ^6
These per cents, of course, refer to syllables. And since these
syllables contain an initial and a final consonantal sound (excepting in the
irregular "chack" list) there are two chances to miss a correct record by
failing to perceive a consonantal sound. Let us see to what extent the ear
can be relied upon when we consider the consonantal sounds.
Section 11. Syllables with an Initial or a Final Consonantal Sound.
There were four lists of syllables which contained either initial or
final consonantal sounds only: "pu," "uv," "su," and "ur." And if we
take also the initial and final consonantal soimds in the "pav" and "shug"
lists, we have altogether a large number of lists which may be considered
for the purpose of determining what per cent of consonantal sounds can
be correctly recorded under the three general conditions of commtmica-
tion.
The following table shows the list, the number of sets (of 100
syllables), the average per cent of correct records in a list, and the prob-
able error of the latter value. Line 5 gives the aggregate number of
syllables and the per cent correctly recorded ; and line 6 gives the like
values for a selected aggregate of syllables (those containing the simple
consonantal sounds only) which was made for use in a following Section.
i»The syllables in these lists begin and end with a consonantal sound, ex-
cepting the "chack" list, which is varied and contains some intermediate con-
sonants.
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380 SOUND ASSIMILATION
TABLE XCIX.
Per cent of correct records of Consonantal Sounds.
Dictaphone Telephone
Intial Final Initial Final
/. pav (lo) 43.i±i^ 344±i.6 (23) 62.o±i.i ^ati.7
2. pu, uv .... (20) 39.o±i^ i8.7±o.7 (20) 46.g±i.6 5aat2.o
3' shug (13) 36.7±2.9 30u|±34 (15) 47.9±a.6 4i.i*a.5
^ su, ur (19) 3a2±i.6 37.i±M (14) 604^2.7 573*3.7
5. Aggregate . . (6200) 3B.9 29.3 (7aoo) 54-5 49-0
6. Selected .... (4490) 391 (44^) 34-3 (5656) 584 (S604) 55-6
Air
Initial Final
/.pav (15) 7ijo±i.7 5i.8t2Ji
^. pu, uv (20) 68.7t2.i 55.042.7
J. shug (14) 67.042.9 49.8±2.7
4. 8U, ur (14) 7ao42.6 62.212.4
5. Aggregate . . (6300) 69.1 54.6
6. Selected ... (513a) 73.8 (5088) 59.6
With the exception of such variation as may be expected under the
variable conditions of our experiments/* a fair degree of consistency is
to be seen in the values in the table. From the dictajrfione records about
40% of the initial consonantal sotmds were correctly recorded, and about
35% of the final; from the telephone, about 58% of the initial, and
about 55% of the final; and from the air, about 70% of the initial, and
about 60% of the final consonantal sounds.
Taking the complement of the per cent of correct records in the
aggregated results as a rough measure of the mental contribution to
perception of consonantal sotmds we may estimate from the preceding
table the values (in per cent) given below:
Dictaphone Telephone Air
Initial Consonant 61 42 27
Final " 66 44 40
These per cents, however, are based upon a fairly even distribution
of the various consonantal sounds. In the "pav," "pu," and "uv" lists,
all of the more usual consonantal sotmds, both simple (as, t, sh, m) and
coalescent (as, tr, spl, rd. If, nch) were included, and were presented
with about equal frequency ; in the remaining lists only the twenty simple
soimds were included, and their frequency was uniform. The various
consonantal sounds do not occur in English, of course, in this regular
1* The "uv" list (line 2) from the dictaphone, may have suffered from a dis-
proportionate wearing down of the cylinder; and the "ur" list (line 4) may have
been pronounced in the air with emphasized distinctness.
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NONSENSE-SYLLABLES 381
way; some are much more frequent than others, and if we wish a meas-
ure of the mental contribution to the perception of English words we
must take account of this fact. But in order to do so we must ascertain :
(i) the per cent of error on each of the consonantal sounds, and (2)
the relative frequency of these sounds in English.
Section III, The Respective Consonantal Sounds,
In order to simplify our inquiry we aggregated all of the records
made from the twenty simple consonantal sounds shown in the table
below. As shown in line 6 of Table XCIX above, we had from the Dicta-
phone 4490 such records of initial sounds, and 4424 of final sotmds ; from
the telephone 5656 of initial, and 5604 of final sounds ; and from the air
5132 of initial and 5088 of final simple consonantal sounds. All of the
errors in these records were tabulated according to the simple con-
sonantal sound which had been dictated and also according to the con-
sonantal sound which was substituted for the dictated sound.
Table C shows (in per cent) the frequency of substitution for the re-
spective sounds.
TABLE C.
Per cent of Substitutions.
Initial: p b t d ch j k g f v th dh s m sh sh m n I r
J Dictaphone 63 40 66 53 61 45 57 53 86 89 90 80 72 76 59 ^ 5i 5o 33 14
-? Telephone 55 3© 31 21 31 27 55 55 55 57 76 68 39 56 27 80 24 19 28 25>
i Air ^33 25 14 8 21 24 17 21 38 58 50 51 14 34 32 73 16 13 17 16
Final:
^Dictaphone6o 68 67 72 53 60 75 68 83 68 98 96 80 49 35 80 54 48 68 4a
iTelephone 59 4i Z7 35 3i 47 56 42 65 59 92 91 47 45 31 70 29 26 37 22
6 Air 53 51 38 35 30 40 39 32 63 55 82 82 25 28 31 66 29 29 31 g
/Frequency 2.0 1.3 10. 4. 0.6 o.i 2.0 1.7 2.6 i.o 1.8 1.8 5.7 2.2 0.3 -— 2.3 6.9 3.6 6,1
These values are given to the nearest integral per cent. In line /,
the sound of p was dictated from the dictaphone as an initial sound 235
times, and of the corresponding records 149 were wrong, making 63.1%
of substitutions for that one sound; in line 4 the same sound was dic-
tated from the dictaphone an equal number of times as a final sound,
59.6% of the records being wrong. The individual consonantal sounds
were dictated through the telephone 301 times, and through the air 272
times ; consequently the percentages in the table are reckoned upon these
numbers." The limit of chance deviation from these values is 6%, the
»• A few exceptions may be noted ; in the aggregates of initial sounds, g, th,
dh, sh, and Mh, were not presented quite as many times ; and in the aggregates of
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SOUND ASSIMILATION
Standard variation is 14%, and the probable error is 1%. Line 7 shows
the relative frequency, estimated to the nearest tenth per cent from a
tabulation of the letters of the alphabet in 5247 words (22,881 letters) in
English text, which was made in another research."
The amount of substitution for the various sounds is graphically
shown in Plate XLIX. The heavy (upper) line represents the records
ioo-
IkHtial 1
60-
9¥
I
0:
pbtdolijkc f v'Si'Sis BtfiAB n X r 9I1 t 4«b J k c f v'ti'Si m kAAs air
Plate XLIX. — Per cent of Substitution for the respective Simple Consonantal
Sounds heard through the dictaphone (upper solid line), telephone
(dotted line), and the air (lower sdiid line). (The second
ih is vocalized ; elsewhere represented by dh).
from the dictaphone; the dotted line, from the telephone; the lig^t
(lower) line, from the air.
The order of the letters in both table and plate is that of Isaac Pit-
man, the celebrated author of the system of phonography which bears his
name. It is based upon an analysis of ''the English spoken language,"
and follows the physiological order of articulation: (i) labials, (2)
lingo-dentals, (3) lingo-palatals, (4) gutterals; first come the surd and
sonant mutes (whispered and voiced explosives), then the surd and
sonant fricatives (whispered and voiced continuous sounds), and finally
the nasals (voice emitted through the nose) and the liquids (so-called
because of their facility in flowing into other sounds).
final sounds the last four sounds just enumerated were not presented quite as fre-
quently. In all cases the per cent is reckoned upon the number of times the indi-
vidual sound was dictated, however.
^•The frequency of p was 1.956% of all the letters (voweb and consonants)
tabulated; of b, 1.332%, etc. The frequency of c (2.88%) was divided equally be-
tween k and s, A third of the frequency of s was transferred to s; and the fre-
quency of th (3.573%) was divided equally between the two sounds of th (th and
dh, which is, of course, quite arbitrary, since perhaps 97% of all occurrences of th
in English text has the vocalized sound, owing to the frequency of the words the,
this, that, and perhaps 85% of its occurrences in names has the other sound, as in
Ruth, Dorothy, Katherine, Edith, Arthur, Martha, Elisabeth, Timothy, Bertha, etc
The sh is so rare that we may disregard it.
The values in Table XCIX indicate that the final consonantal sotmds
are as a whole more difficult to record correctly than the initial, and an
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NONSENSE-SYLLABLES 383
examination of the curves in the two parts of Plate XLIX will suggest
that the final sounds as a whole differ from the initial. This is true both
physiologically and phonetically. A surd mute as initial (as in tea) for
example, is produced by an explosion of the breath from the barrier
formed by the tongue and teeth which immediately issues in vocalized
sound, while as final (as in at), it is produced by an occlusion of the
vocalized breath followed by an explosion of breath which is not vocal-
ized. And it is quite certain that the three general conditions varied not
only with respect to the relative indefiniteness of the respective sounds in
each respective class (initial or final) but also with respect to the relative
indefiniteness of the initial and final sounds of the respective letters. For
example, the final mutes which were only moderately more difficult than
the initial mutes to record from the dictafriione and the telephone were
much harder from the air ; the two initial sounds of th, which were mod-
erately more difficult than the corresponding final sounds to record from
the dictaphone, increased in relative difficulty from the telephone, and
still more from the air. Final r was much more obscure than initial r
from the dictaphone, but was less obscure from the telephone and the
air. Final v, which from the telephone and the air was about equal in in-
definiteness to initial v, from the dictaphone is relatively much less in-
definite.
Line / in Table C gives the estimated frequency of the sounds in
English text without respect to whether they are initial or final in the
syllable. It will therefore be necessary to assume a ratio for the whole of
the sounds. Suppose all of the sounds occur as often in the initial posi-
tion as in the final ; then, by multiplying each value (per cent) under the
respective letters by the corresponding frequency (also per cent), and
aggregating the products for the six respective lines, we get
TABLE CI.
Per cent of error in the perception of English Speech.
Dictaphone Telephone Air
Initial 3L75 ao45 "45
Final J6.20 2346 20.02
Average 33-9^ 21.96 15.74
Consonants 51.50 3325 23.80
If all consonantal sounds recorded from the dictaphone were initial
sotmds in English speech, the ear, under the condition of our experiments,
could not be expected to identify 31.75% of all the sounds (consonantal
and vowel) in the dictation ; if they were final sounds the amount would
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384 SOUND ASSIMILATION
be 36.20% ; or, on the assumption that they were equally divided between
initial and final sounds, it would be 33.98%. The corresponding values
for communication through the telephone and across 25 meters of sur-
space are 21.96% and 15.74%. And since it is only the consonantal
sounds in English speech (about 56% of all sounds) which fail the ear,
the per cent may be expressed in terms of the consonantal sounds as dis-
tributed in English speech (51.50%, 33.25%, and 23.80%, respectively).
Our conclusion from these results, then, is that although our stu-
dents could satisfactorily understand the communications through the
dictaphone, the telephone and the air, when the sotmds came in their ac-
customed order, and could record all of the sounds without error, they
could not hear definitely enough to identify a half of the consonantal
sounds through the dictaphone, a third of them through the telephone
and a quarter of them through the air. If they thought they heard all of
the consonantal as well as the vowel sounds, or, if they thought their per-
ception of the words depended upon their hearing them, they overlooked
entirely the substantial contribution which the mind was making to their
perception.*^
^^On these more subtle psychological matters the layman is always skeptical.
He, however, can provide himself with a demonstration by having hb neighbor dic-
tate to him in his customary telephonic manner of speech one of the lists of non-
sense-syllables (in Appendix A) over the telephone. Or, if he has access to a dicta-
phone he can dictate a list to the machine himself and immediately afterward
transcribe it.
A mature student (Mr. B.) who was skeptical dictated (on December 6, 1915)
the "pu" list to the dictaphone, and immediately afterward transcribed it He got
S7% of the syllables correct; other students who later transcribed from the same
record got 32%, 34%, and 41% correct, respectively. An experienced teacher of
stenography and typing (Mr. H. H. S.), who also does court-reporting and is ac-
customed to transcribing from the dictaphone, transcribed (on August 3, 1917) the
''su" list which the writer had just dictated. He got 42% correct.
In Dictations I and II on the dictaphone, in the following Division, was the
name, P. F. Venn; the closest records were: P. F. Bent, P. F. Venn, P. F. Bent,
C. F. Vent, C. Denning, and I. Grant. And in another, were ten names, the follow-
ing four of which being the more neariy correctly transcribed (the first line gives
the dictation, the others the transcriptions) :
P. M. Gray D. V. Skake S. P. Gates V. N. Jack
T. M. T. C. Skate F. C (Jates G. M. Jacks
P. M. Gray D. P. Skate M. G. Gates G. M. Jack
S. C (Jates P. M. Jack
F. P. (^tes
Whether the reagent is skilled or unskilled with the instrument (telephone or dic-
taphone) he cannot hear many of the consotlantal sounds, and must therefore de-
pend on the context for them.
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NONSENSE-SYLLABLE 385
If the student is asked whether he heard all the sounds of the com-
munication in English speech which he has satisfactorily received, he is
apt to reply confidently that he did so ; that he heard what was said, — of
course he heard the sounds. But, if he is pressed to reply with respect to
all of the sounds, and if he is cautious, his confidence is likely to weaken
and he will reply that to the best of his belief he heard them ^U ; he is
not prepared to make a definite scientific observation on the matter.
The question then arises as to whether these sounds are really not
essential to communication and are elided in speaking or are neglected
by the ear, or are really heard as other sounds.
To throw light upon this question further experiments were per-
formed. Their results are detailed in the following Division.
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386 SOUND ASSIMILATION
DIVISION II.— SIMULATED ENGLISH TEXT.
It has been noted that the various sounds which were substituted in
the recording for the dictated sounds have been tabulated so as to show
not only the frequency with which the respective dictated sounds have
been missed, and the frequency with which the respective sounds have
been substituted for others, but also the frequency with which each par-
ticular sound has been substituted for each other. For example, p was
dictated by the dictaf^one as an initial sound 235 times ; it was missed in
the recording 149 times ; substituted for it were h 5 times, / 40, d o, ch
^» y 3> * 34f ^ 2, / 5, V 3, ^ I, etc. And p was substituted for other simple
sounds 162 times: for t 11 times, t 7, d 3, ch 4, j o, k 11, g 4, f 38, v 18,
^15, etc. The tabulation makes a coordinate table from which one can
readily learn what sounds were most frequently substituted for what
others, and thus be able to arrange some English text by supplanting the
consonantal sounds with the most frequent substitutions for them which,
when dictated under the same conditions under which the substitutions
had been made, should so strongly suggest the English text to the re-
agent that some of it at least might get into the record not as "garbled"
English but as correct English, — even though the reagent is instructed to
faithfully record exactly what he hears.
For the preparation of a dictaphonic record the tables of substitu-
tions of initial and final sample consonantal sounds show that the sounds
in line / of the following table should be replaced by those in line ^ if
initial, or by those of line 3 if final :*•
f V th dh s z sh m n 1 r
th dh V V th dh ch n m r 1
V 1 — — z dh zh n m v v
Suppose the text to be forced by suggestion into the record is "The aim
of this exercise is . . . ," it should be dictated to the dictaphone as "Ve
ain ol viz epsevthidhe idh . . . ," observing the vowel sounds, the accent,
the inflection, and the time-elements of the syllables of the original as
faithfully as possible.
Such a dictation was made to the dictaphone (November 29, 1916)
*• Provided wc limit the selection to substitutions with the highest frequency,
and disregard some close seconds. The vocalized th, as in the, is represented here
also by dh.
(I)—. p
b t
d
ch j k g
(2).™ f
m p
z
sh zh t d
(3).— b
g k
t
] zh p d
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SIMULATED ENGLISH TEXT 387
while the prospective recorder was sitting just beyond the closed door
taking the dictation through the door ; he did not know the dictation was
being put on the dictaphone, and had been instructed to record faithfully
what he heard. Line / of the exercise printed below is the dictation ;^*
line 2 is the student's record of the dictation through the door ; and line
5 is his record from the dictaphone immediately afterward :
Vu ane otb vith etsertbith lib pu cbo kow tersept lib
The aim of viv etxp iv a cbo cow persa iv
(3) Tbe aim of tbis exercise is to sbow bow perfect is
vu zitpaeome atb am imspranemp otb tonnuniprasbum. Vu tboitb
va sitvasone av am imspament of Tbe tboi
tbe dictapbone as an instrument of Tbe voice
tbeps vu ziaepran otb vu kramtbnipper imko tbivrasbum; vu
fef va viasfram of va krapniber imper vibration; tbe
tbe diapbragm of tbe transmitter into vibrations. Tbe
retordeen betbitb otb vu krantbnipper tomtberps vu tboumb otb vu
retortion devife of a transnipper converts sounds of
recording device of tbe transmitter converts tbe sound of tbe
tboitb impu imbemkacbums om vu wax tbi limber; vu meedle otb
voice in vu of wax filament; va meedle of
voice into indentations on tbe wax filament. Tbe needle of
vu refrogootber tboUows vu drootb otb imbempations, amb vutb
reprotbuser tboloes tbu of impentation, am vu
tbe reproducer follows tbe grooves of indentations, and tbus
lekrogootbetb vu lambwaj vap yutb sporeb im vu wax; amb vu
tbe prootbee tbu language tbat is tbored in tbu wax; an tbu
reproduces tbe language tbat is stored in tbe wax; and tbe
spubemp leporbs vitb rambwaje im ripim. Vu atpurafy otb vu
records vif rampage im writing. Vu atropby of vu
records tbis language in writing. Tbe accuracy of tbe
spubemp'e reporg illusprapf vu leliamiliky otb vu zitpatbome
s bepor illustrate va liability of tbu zitrazone
(bearer) illustrates tbe reliability of tbe dictapbone
atb am imsprunemp for sporlm amb leprobutbim lambwaje.
av am instrument for forming and distributing language,
as an instrument for forming and introducing language.
Now, the record in line 2 shows that the reagent understood the
instructions and that he exercised a fair degree of skill in following them.
^*The substitutions were determined from only a partial tabulation of the
data which have since been completed, and differ from those suggested above.
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388 SOUND ASSIMILATION
So clearly was the dictation "garbled English" that after the third word
and until the last phrase it did not even seem to simulate English text hav-
ing sense. The dictation from the dictaphone, on the other hand, seemed
to be English text, expressing meaning, but at times inarticulately. The
recorder was entirely incredulous when told that the two records had
been made from the same dictation, and was finally convinced only by
holding a typed copy of the "garbled" edition while listening again to
the dictaphone; even then, to his bewilderment, the dictaphone occa-
sionally forced the English upon him.
In experiments of this nature conducted with the dictaphone during
the last two years we have obtained data which are pertinent to the ques-
tion raised above concerning the reality of the auditory impressions of
consonantal sounds that are not there. These data may be more conven-
iently presented in five parts, since the experiments were conducted with
five distinct texts.
Dictation I.
The first dictation to the dictaphone was transcribed by nine stu-
dents and critically examined and challenged by ten students. Tlie pro-
cedure was as follows :
(i) The student was told to record from the dictaphone exactly
y/fhsit he hears. He is to have two tries at it, and in the first trial space
should be left for what is missed in order that it may be filled in in the
second trial without needless copying of text already recorded. He was
given a pad of composition paper and a pencil.
(2) The dictaphone was started. With the receiver at his ear, he
heard from the dictaphone the instructions repeated, and a signal,
"Ready." He then began transcribing. After the dictation was finished,
the carriage was returned to the beginning and the process was repeated.
(3) A typed copy of the English text, which the dictation was in-
tended to simulate, was supplied the reagent, with instructions to follow
it with his pencil-point, letter by letter, while listening again to the dicta-
phone, and to make a short vertical stroke under any letter the sound of
which did not come true. In a second trial, he was to record, if possible,
under each challenged letter the sound he heard instead ; finally, to esti-
mate the per cent of consonantal sounds that did not come true.
(4) He was then given a typed copy of both English and "garbled"
texts, in interlinear arrangement as shown below, that he might examine
each alternately while listening again to the dictaphonic record.
Below are given (i) in line i, the English text; (2) in line 2, the
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SIMULATED ENGLISH TEXT 389
"garbled" text which was dictated to the dictaphone; (3) in the under-
scoring, the parts of the English text which appeared in the records of
the nine reagents who transcribed; and (4) in the digits, the number of
challenges made by ten reagents upon the English-text sounds immedi-
ately above the digits.
Dictation I.
(1) This is an exercise in correct telephonic communication.
(2) Zith iv am echerfive im tozzek kerethomip tonnumiprajum.
1 1 S i 7 S 8 SI
Sounds are presented to the receiver and set up vibrations of
Pounj as hefempeb ku su wef ether am f ep ut thigrachumv oth
S 1 i ""1 1 n 3
the diaphragm which are electrically conducted to the transmitter
vu giathlan wix al eregklitary tombumteb pu su prampsnipper
8 2 1 8 1 i 1 s 1
from which a record of speech is made. It illustrates the accu-
prun wits a breporg ob steex ij nabe. Ik ildusprapf vu atpu-
g S 3 — i 8
racy and reliability of this method of doing business, including
rafy am weriaviripy oth sif nesob os goim vithmef, implubim
i TT fl i 3 8 V i 5~r
the making of contracts and diplomatic agreements; for example,
su nating os tomprax am giflonapip adreenemps; thor exantle.
1811 1 IS 1
Kindly send one thousand Ford automobiles to the Prussian agent.
Timbly femb wung southumbThorb okonovilv pru vu Prussian azemp,
8
Mister P. P. Venn.
Hisper P. F. Venn.
1 1
It is true that the English in the instructions from the dictaphone
was generally understood upon the first hearing, and that the ''garbled*'
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390 SOUND ASSIMILATION
text presented difficulties in many instances insuperable,'® but the
"garbled" version did in some measure force the English text into the
transcription, and in a much less measure suggested other content which
was imiformly English and not nonsense-syllables. As the underscoring
shows, all nine reagents transcribed the first word, seven the second,
third, fourth, and fifth words, one the sixth word, and none the follow-
ing two words. The relative position of the ruling identifies the reagent,
and shows great variability among the reagents.
The digits show that, when the English text was held and critically
examined while the reagent was listening the third and fourth times to
the dictaphonic record, the sounds challenged were mostly those that
failed in the transcription. These challenges often resulted from vari-
ance between the English recorded in the transcription and the typed
copy. Some of these variant editions follow : Instead of receiver, Cxsar ;
telephonic, every comic ; contracts, thumb-tacks ; including the making, im-
proving the mating; set up vibrations of the diaphragm, head up by
greatness of the diaplan; vibrations of the diaphragm, migration of the
g^ant-land ; contracts and diplomatic agreements, subtract and it will hap-
pen at Reno ; kindly send one thousand Ford automobiles to the Prussian
Agent, Mr. P. F. Venn, kindly send one dozen of the nodules to the presi-
dent, Mr. I. Grant.
The Introspections that were written by some of the reagents, and
the numerical calculations based on these performances will be pven at-
tention after the exhibition of the other dictations.
Dictation II.
In Dictation II the simulated English text differs slightly from that
of Dictation I, and the substituted sounds are almost completely changed.
Only three students transcribed from the record, and five critically ex-
amined the typed English text while listening the third and fourth times
to the dictaphonic record and challenged such sounds as did not come
true. The general procedure was the same as that described above.
The following shows in line i the simulated English text, in line ^
the dictation, in the underscoring the English text which appeared in the
transcriptions of three reagents, in the digits the number of challenges
made by five reagents on the sounds of the English text immediately
above.
*o The major part of the difficulties presented were owing to failure in the dic-
tating to preserve the accent, inflection, vowel sounds, and temporal elements, of
the English text, rather than in the substituted consonantal sounds, and to the
wearing down of the wax record through ten or a dozen repetitions.
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SIMULATED ENGLISH TEXT 391
Dictation II.
fl) This is an exercise in correct dictaphonic comnunica-
(2) Vith ith am etsevfith iv tovekt stipkasozit tonnunita-
1 S 1 1 1 1 4 s
tion. Sounds are presented to the receiver and set up vibrations
shung. Poungth av frethemted ku vu vefether amd fep ut thifrations
1 Ills 1
of the diaphragm, which make indentations on the wax cylinder,
oa vu stiaspram, wits nate isstenkationth os vu whaps firinger.
1 1
The transmitter reproduces these vibrations in the speech of
Vu kranthnipper vrefrothutheth veth thiflashumth im va steets os
1 1 1
which the written record is made. It illustrates the accuracy
wix vu vikkem vreporg ith nage. Ik imusprapf vu atpurafy
1 I 1
and reliability of this method of doing business, including the
amd veliamiriky oz vith nefob oth stewing mithmeth. implubing vu
1 1 t 1 11
making of contracts and diplomatic agreements; for example. Kindly
gaping 08 tomprax amd stipronakip abreenemps; sor etzantle, Timbly
1 s f
send one thousand Ford automobiles to the Prussian agent,
femj wung fouthumb Sorp akonovilv ku vu Prussian azempt.
The underscoring indicates that the "garbled" text here forced into
the transcriptions a relatively greater amount of the English text.
Dictation III.
In Dictation III the English text varies a little from the preceding,
and the substitutions are entirely changed. Two purposes governed the
dictation ; (i) To express all the consonantal sounds by the use of but six
simple sounds {t for t, p, k; d for d, b, g, dh, v ; s for s, f, th ; s for z,
dh, j, v; n for n, m, ng; r for r, 1, v) ; and (2) to reduce the stimuli
to nearer the threshold of perception by holding the mouth-piece a little
farther from the lips while dictating. Unfortunately the record was too
dim for transcribing, but, owing to the momentary scarcity of blank rec-
ords, it was nevertheless used. Two reagents attempted to transcribe it ;
seven critically examined the sounds while holding a typed copy of the
English text and challenged those that did not come true.
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592 SOUND ASSIMILATION
(2)
Dictation III.
This is an txtrcist in corrtct telephonic conranication.
Die is an t tsersise in torrett tertsonit tonnunitatrun.
Sounds are presented to the receiver and set up vibrations of the
Sounds are tresented to da reseider and set ut didratruns os sa
^'"i
diaphragm, which make indentations on the wax cylinder and thus
diasran. rits nate indentatruns on sa rats syrinder and dus
actuate the transmitter to produce speech. This is then recorded,
attuate^ du ^ransnitter to troduse steets. Zis is sen retorded.
It illustrates the accuracy and reliability of this method of do-
It irrustrates su atturacy and reriadiriiy os sis nesod os do-
i i i i n
ing business, including the making of contracts and diplomatic
in disness, intrudin su natin os tontratts and ditronatit
agreements; for example; Kindly send one thousand Ford automo-
adreenents; sor etsanta; Tindy send one sousand Sord autono-
iiiiiiiii^^ ^ _
biles to the Prussian agent,
dires to su Trussian asent.
Dictation IV.
(1) To be or not to be. that is the question: Whether 'tis
(2) Ku be or mop ku be, vat iv vu twestion; Wever 'kis
"i i i i i r^
nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous
modler im vu nind ku fuffer va slings amd arrows of ouprageous
TTe t 4' i 1 i i i "s" i i l
fortune, or to take up arms against a sea of troubles, and, by
sortune, or ku kape up arns abenst a fee othkrubbles, amd, by
I r-i —
opposing, end them.
oppoving, emd vem.
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SIMULATED ENGLISH TEXT 393
Dictation IV.
In Dictation IV the general procedure, with an exception which ap-
plies to only three of the reagents, was the same as described above ; the
chief difference in the dictation is that what was expected to be familiar.
English was simulated in the "garbled" text, and only half of the con-
sonantal sounds were changed. Eight reagents attempted transcribing;
and eight critically examined the typed English text while listening to the
dictaphonic record and challenged the sounds that did not come true.
As was to be expected much more of the text was transcribed, and,
as will be shown later, a relatively larger ratio of the substitutions were
found in the transcriptions. But for some of the reagents the decrease
in substitutions did not result in more complete transcriptions, since they
were unacquainted with Hamlet. One such transcription, because it il-
lustrates so well the force of the normal tendency to convert likely stimuli
into language, even in the face of the adequacy of the stimuli (many of
them not substituted) for the perception of other persons, is given in full
(line 3) :
Q) To bf or not to be. that U the question: Whether His
(2) Ka be or mot ku be. vat iv vu tweetion: Wtvtr kit
(3) To be or not to be, that is the question: Whether in tears
nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous
modler im vu nind ku fuffer va slings amd arrows of ouprageous
or in sunshine that suffer such things and arrows of outrageous
fortune, or to take up arms against a sea of troubles, and,
fortune, or ku kape up arns abtnst a fee oth krubbles amd
fortune, or the fate of harm, repent the sea of troubles, and
by opposing, end them.
by oppoving, emd vem.
while upholding repent them.
This reagent in his critical inspection of the typed English text while
listening to the record for the third and fourth times, could only hear
"sunshine" for "the mind," "these things" for "the slings," and "uphold-
ing^* for "opposing," in conformance with his transcription, although the
few substitutions would not, as the above text shows, support his auditory
impression. He heard consonantal sotmds that were not there.
The respect in which the procedure as observed by three reagents
differed from the foregoing was in interpolating a step between the crit-
ical inspection of the typed English text for the purpose of challenging
each sound that did not come true, and the critical inspection of the inter-
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394 SOUND ASSIMILATION
linear English and "garbled" texts : the reagent critically inspected a typed
copy of the "garbled" text, while listening to the same dictaphonic record,
and challenged each sound that did not come true. The wax cylinder had
been ostentatiously removed, put in a box, and returned, and the student
usually did not suspect that he was listening again to the same record.
As before, he took two tries, first marking the unsatisfactory sounds, and
then identifying "substitutions."
Dictation V.
(1) Thf aim of this txercist is to show bow perfect is
(2) Va ant oth vith ttaerthith ith pa chow kow teraept ith
«'i if "i i'i 1 z"i""i
the dictaphone aa an inatroment of comranication. The voice
va sitpaaoma ath aa iaapranamp oth tonnunipraahom. Vg thoith
— i — S i i 8 1 1 8""*"r
eeta the diaphragm of the transmitter into vibration; the re-
thapa vu liaapran oth vu kramthnipper imko thivraahom; vn re-
cording device of the tranamitter converta the aound of the
tordeem bethith oth vn kranthnipper tomtherpa va thoomb oth vn
T'*"i --— ^— ~-™.
voice into indentationa on the wax cylinder; the needle of the
thoith impu imbemkachiima om vn yax thilimber; vu meedle oth vg
*^''"'""'"""'Y" i i i s 1 i
reproducer followa the groove of indentationa. and thua re-
refrogoother thollowa vee drooth oth imbempatione, amb vuth le-
1 i'i'i i' 6 8 1 i i T
producea the language that waa atored in the wax; and the atu-
krogootheth vu lambwaj vap yuth aporeb im vee yax; amb vee apn-
dent records thia language in writing. The accuracy of the
bemp leporba vith rambwaj im ripim. Vee atpurafy oth vee
it 1" " "i'"'4^^" 1 ""Yi'Ti "■
atudent'a record illuatratea the reliability of the dictaphone
epubemp'a reporg illuaprapf vee leliamiliky oth vee aitpathome
181 8 1 84 111" 8 ■ t"
aa an inatrumant for a taring and reproducing language,
ath am imaprunamp thor aporim amb lebrobuthim lambwage.
1 1
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SIMULATED ENGLISH TEXT 395
The reagent whose transcription is presented on page 393, made the
challenges quoted there and three others, on the English text; but he
made thirteen challenges on the ''garbled" text, and the ''substitutions"
that he identified conform to the English text which he had just finished
with. The performance of the two other reagents with the "garbled"
text was precisely similar. The three reagents together made 33 chal-
lenges, specifying the "substitutions," and 31 of these "substitutions"
conform to the English text. Those 33 consonantal sounds were heard,
under conditions of critical examination, yet they were not there !
Dictation V.
For the purpose of trying out this last feature of the experiment
under conditions as to text and substitutions uniform with Dictations I
and II, Dictation V, which contains only a few improvements in substitu-
tions, was made. Eight reagents attempted transcribing and eight re-
agents challenged sounds in both the English and the "garbled" texts.
The exhibit, on page 394, shows in the same way as before the English
text which the "garbled" text forced into the transcriptions, and the
challenges on the English text.
The underscoring indicates that considerable of the English text
was forced into the transcription by the "garbled" text, and the digits
indicate that relatively few of the sounds in the English text were chal-
lenged when the dictaphonic record was inspected for this purpose.
Numerical Results.
We may now put some of the numerical calculations together. The
extent to which the "garbled" text forced the corresponding sounds of
the English text into the transcriptions, may be determined numerically
if we consider the number of such cases of substitution in relation to the
possible number. For example, nine reagents endeavored to transcribe
Dictation I, in which there were 152 substituted sounds, making it pos-
sible to transcribe 1368 substituted sounds; 502 of these sounds being
actually transcribed, the per cent of substitutions forced into the tran-
scription is 37.
Table CII gives these values for each of the five dictations.
It is seen that in Dictations I, II, and V, in which the substituted
sounds were close to 85% of all of the consonantal sounds, and the text
was fairly difficult with respect to content, from a third to a half of the
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TABLE CII.
English Sounds forced into the Transcriptions by the "garbled** text
Dictation I II III IV V I. II. V
/. Substituted Sounds .... ij66 474 164 272 1480 3322
2, Transcribed 50a 262 33 193 721 1505
3, Per cent 37 59 I9 7i 49 45
substitutions were replaced by their corresponding sounds of the English
text in the transcription. In Dictation IV, in which only 51% of the con-
sonantal sounds were changed, and the text was more familiar, 71% of
the substitutions were transcribed as their corresponding sounds in the
English text
Of course, it was not the substituted sound that exerted the force
toward its corresponding sound in the English text; the general sem-
blance of the "garbled" text to the English text furnished the force. But
the indefiniteness or the ambiguity of the auditory impression of the sub-
stituted sound permitted the transcription. The substitutions in the
"garbled" text were not heard, were disregarded, or were heard as other
sounds.
In a similar way we may determine what per cent the number of
challenged sounds in the English text is of the number of substituted
sounds.
Table CIII shows in line / the product of the number of consonantal
sounds and the number of reagents who inspected the English text
for the purpose of challenging the sounds that did not come true ; in line
2, the like aggregate number of English sounds which were changed in
the "garbled" text ; in line 3 the per cent of substituted sounds ; in line
4, the aggregate number of sounds in the English text that were chal-
lenged as not coming true ; in line 5, the aggregate number of challenged
sounds in the English text that had been changed in the "garbled" text ;
and in line 6, the per cent of substituted sounds that were challenged.
In the second line we have the number of critical judgments passed
TABLE an.
Challenged Sounds in English Text.
Dictotion I II HI IV
/. Consonant Sounds 1710 915 1197 536
2, Substituted Sounds 1520 790 574 272
i. Per cent 8p 86 48 51
4. Challenges of English.. 132 4^ 59 56
5. Challenges (net) 129 44 29 44
6. Per cent as 5.6 5.1 16.2
V
I. II. V
1736
4361
1480
3790
85
87
160
337
143
316
9.7
8^
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SIMULATED ENGLISH TEXT 397
Upon the substituted sounds, each judgment consisting of two observa-
tions while the reagent held before him the English text ; and from the
last line we learn what per cent of these substituted sounds were chal-
lenged,— usually less than io%. What of the other 90% ? There is no
question of their being disregarded ; there is no question of their being
unheard, — they came true to the sounds in the English text; they were
heard ax other sounds.
Some of the students who critically examined the English text of
Dictations I, II, III, and V, for sounds that did not come true expressed
in per cent their estimate of that number (Line 3 in Table CIII gives the
real per cent): Dictation I: 11, 20, 5, 10, 10, 15; Dictation II: 12, 7;
Dictation III : 6, 8, 3 ; Dictation V : 35, 14, 25, 9. Their estimates were
a little high considering the number of challenges, but they serve to sup-
port the statements italicised above.
The students who critically examined the sounds in the English text
of Dictation V also critically examined the "garbled" text. In each case
the wax cylinder had been removed from the dictaphone, put in its box,
and returned in place, and the reagent did not know that he was hearing
the same record while he was examining the sotmds of the "garbled"
text. Two of the reagents, however, declared that all of the consonantal
sounds were wrong, — ^that this record also gives the English text. They
were pressed to nevertheless specify the sounds that do not come true.
Others were able to hear many of the sounds of the "garbled" text true.
But challenges of all reagents were more frequent; altogether 562 as
against 143 of the English text. In spite of the fact that the reagents
looked at the typed characters in the "garbled" text while examining
those identical sounds on the dictaphonic record, then, 562 or 38% were
challenged as not coming true, and 95% of the dictaphonic sounds cor-
responding to the challenged text which were identified were identified
as the sotmds in the English text. Half of the challenged sounds, which
were true to the "garbled" text before the eyes of the reagent, were iden-
tified as other definite sounds.
Five of the reagents gave in per cent their estimate of the dicta-
phonic sounds which were not true to the "garbled" text : 100, 100, 60,
33, 25. They were all true to the "garbled" text.
Introspections.
In order that some contribution may be made from the subjective
side of these experiments with the dictaphone, we shall let some of the
reagents speak for themselves :
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(i) In the first passage [Dictation I, English text] I think there are about
10% of consonants which are not distinctly spoken.
In the second exercise [Dictation II, English text] I think there are about
12% of the consonants which are not clearly pronounced.
In the third exercise [Dictation III, English text] I think there are about
8% of the consonants which are not clearly pronounced.
After seeing the copy of what is really dictated to the machine [the "garbled"
texts], and then hearing the machine, it is easy for me to realize that the consonants
on the [dictaphonic] record are changed, but at first I imagined that the words
were correct, that is, were as they are used every day.
November 22, 191 5. D. G.
(2) When the dictaphone was first presented to me and I listened to the
record, there was nothing but a jumble of sounds ; but after a few minutes I could
catch a few intelligible words. Then, upon the second trial, I was able to tmder-
stand many more words, but still there were quite a few which I could not under-
stand. It seemed as if the accent was being placed on some other part of the word
than the right place. ...
Then a paper [English text] was given me showing the real words and after
that it [the dictaphonic recprd] was easily understood Then a third paper
["garbled" text] was given me showing wherein our diffictdty was. ... It proves
that the hearing is not as accurate as one believes, and speech has to do with many
senses. Then again I discovered I was not depending on hearing, but the mind,
and with each sound I tried to recall some word like it.
November 24, 1915. V. C
(3) From this experiment I find that my hearing is not as acute as I believed
it. On examination I found that v sounded like th and other equally absurd inter-
changing of consonants, but in many cases I found that I was not depending on
my ear alone for the record of the dictaphone, but more on my mind — ^what the
word sounded like, what it should be. I was surprised most to find that such a
variety of consonants could sound like one on the dictaphone. And yet with two
written examples [typed English and "garbled" texts] before me I could make it
[the dictaphonic record] sound like the one or the other as I chose. This goes to
prove, I believe, that speech has to do with other senses besides hearing, — ^habit,
experience, and the like, come in to help in distinguishing a word.
November 24, 1915. D. H.
(4) On the paper [transcript from Dictation IV] "To be or not to be," it
will be noticed at the close that the words I took down are entirely different from
those which appear on the typewritten sheet [English text]. On going over the
record, at the same time following the typed sheet, the sounds came to me exactly
as they are on the sheet It seems as though the typed sheet suggested and helped
me to hear it as it is on this sheet.
As for the sheet marked (2) ["garbled" text], as I followed it with my eyes
while listening to the record, I tended to fall into the way of hearing the words
as they appear on this sheet; that is, with a few exceptions. (I have marked
those.) Without any effort I could follow them in this manner. But in the case
of "iv" for "is," I could not make myself imagine anything other than "is." [If
was "iv."]
November 29, 1916. H. B.
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SIMULATED ENGLISH TEXT 399
(5) I listened to the record on the dictaphone machine [Dictation V] and
wrote down the impressions I got from the voice. I had considerable difficulty in
recognizing any words, and only recorded a few.
I was next given a sheet of paper [English text] containing several sentences,
and I watched this wording carefully as I again listened to the voice of the record.
This time I placed beneath the words any sounds I received from the record that
didn't correspond to those typed on the paper. Very few of these were recorded,
as the voice seemed to speak just what was on the paper.
I was next given a paper ["garbled" text] containing a lot of meaningless
syllables so constructed that they nearly corresponded in sound to the impressions
of the words I seemed to get from the machine. I watched these syllables as I
listened to the machine, and recorded below them what I heard that didn't corre-
spond to the syllables. I again seemed to hear the words that were on the first
paper [English text].
I was then told that the voice pronounced, not the words [English text], but
the meaningless syllables ["garbled" text] which were very much like the words.
I was then given a paper with both the words and syllables upon it, and after
a little practice I could, by covering up one of the lines, hear the other pronounced
by the voice.
In this latter procedure, I took a portion of both words and syllables which
resembled each other in sound, which was as follows :
the voice into indentations on the wax cylinder
vu thoiUi impu imbemkachums om vu yax thilimber
By covering first one line and then the other I could hear each part as I followed
it; that is, all except the last two words, "wax cylinder"; these I could not hear
as the meaningless syllables below them, but the words I heard in each case, al-
though it was the meaningless syllables below that were really recorded [on the
dictaphonic record].
December 7, 8, 1916. R. R. S.
(6) In listening to spoken words, the effort of the mind is to extract the
possible sense which the sounds uttered may be supposed to hold, in all cases where
the pronunciation is indistinct, incomplete or uncertain. This was shown to me in
the experiment of this afternoon, when I copied down what I thought I had heard
from the dictaphone. The sounds of the words were not correct, but so far as
possible, I seem to have striven to make them into words and intelligible com-
binations of words. This was true also when the garbled words [Dictation V]
were dictated to me by Professor Coover, he being separated from me by a closed
door. When I directed my attention upon the words as I thought they should be,
I felt much more certain that they were being thus correctly pronounced ; but when
I concentrated on the garbled version, I began, with but few exceptions, to hear the
mangled words much more clearly and unmistakably.
November 29, 1916. J. S.
(7) The first time I listened to the [dictaphonic] record [Dictation V], it
was hard to associate the sounds to words which formed a complete sentence. But
with the second trial I had more in mind what words were to be used, and I heard
most of the sounds as definite words, although they were not dear.
When watching the first typed sheet with the words [English text], it (the
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400 SOUND ASSIMILATION
voice] seemed to me to conform more to the typed words, although there was much
not dear.
When watching the second typed sheet with the sounds ["garbled" text], I
felt that my previous judgment was very poor, for the sounds seemed to conform
more to the second sheet
I was very much surprised to know that the record [Dictation V] was dic-
tated from the second sheet of sounds. I had believed that it was dictated from
the first sheet of English words. The record seemed to sound more like the
English words than the other. I imagine this is because I am more accustomed to
the English words than the other rather odd combination of letters.
December 4, 1916. F. M. C
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CONCLUSION 401
CONCLUSION.
When nonsense-syllables are recorded from the dictaphone, from the
telephone, or at a distance of twenty-five meters, under conditions ade-
quate for communication, the records are found to be only partially cor-
rect; if the syllables have both an initial and a final consonantal sound,
the respective numbers of correct records are less than 15%, 40%, and
40% ; if the syllables have only an initial consonantal sound, 39%,
58%, and 73% ; if they have only a final consonantal sound, 34%, 56%,
and 60%. And if the per cent of error on each of these simple conson-
antal sounds is considered in relation with the relative frequency of each
in English speech, we find that of all the consonantal sounds in speech
heard under the three general conditions which we have employed 51.50%,
33-^5%» and 23.80%, respectively, may be expected to fail the ear. In
other words, under these conditions of communication speech is readily
understood, and all of the consonantal sounds in its composition could be
correctly recorded; but if these sounds are pronounced in haphazard
order, only half of them can be identified from the dictaphone, a third of
them from the telephone, and a quarter of them from the air, by the ear
alone. To this extent may the consonantal sounds be too indistinct for
identification and yet contribute to satisfactory communication; to this
extent, consequently, is the recipient of the communication exposed,
under favorable conditions in context, to error. Reliance upon his ears
would be precarious.
Although in the perception of English speech some sounds are com-
monly lacking by reason of elision in pronunciation,^* and other relatively
tmessential sounds are disregarded, some consonantal sounds are also
falsely heard, even when critically examined.
When 85% of the consonantal sounds in a more or less unfamiliar
and technical sample of English text had been changed to the sounds
most frequently substituted for them, and the "garbled" text thus com-
posed had been put on a dictaphonic record, transcriptions from that rec-
ord produced 50% of the simulated consonantal sounds of the English
2^ Especially obvious in the language of the street: Godda-macha-bowcha ?
(have you got a match about you?); c'mccr (come here); hoo-zat? (who is
that?) ; sry (that is right) or saw-ry (that is all right).
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402 SOUND ASSIMILATION
text. When the record was heard twice again while the reagent critically
inspected the sounds in a typed copy of the English text for the purpose
of challenging any sound that did not come true to the copy, only io% of
the changed consonantal sounds were challenged. When the sounds in
a typed copy of the "garbled" text were likewise critically inspected while
listening to the record (to which they were true) yet twice again, 38%
of the consonantal sounds were challenged, and 95% of the challenged
sounds which were identified, were identified as the corresponding sounds
of the English text. Half of the challenged consonantal sounds were
heard as other sounds. Finally, selected portions of the dictaphonic rec-
ord when heard while both the English and the "garbled" texts, in inter-
linear arrangement, were before the eyes of the reagent and were alter-
nately critically examined, gave clearly first the one and then the other ;
that is, precisely the same auditory stimuli were identified by the same
reagent now as English text and again €u "garbled" text.
From the experiments with nonsense-syllables on the dictaphonic
record we learned that the mind (versus the ear) supplied 50% of the
consonantal sounds as distributed in English speech; the "garbled" text
on the dictaphonic record forced 50% of changed consonantal sounds in
the English text into the transcriptions. In both of these cases no sug-
gestion beyond what the sounds on the records themselves offered was
operative. When the typed English text, however, was carefully watched
while the sounds on the record were critically examined, less than 10%
of the changed sounds in the English text were challenged ; po% came
true to the English text, — were heard as other sounds. This shows the
force of suggestion from the visual text when its influence was toward
the false cognition of sounds, — false cognition was increased about 80%.
This force was not overcome entirely by the suggestion offered by the
typed "garbled" text, since 38% of these sounds were challenged and
half of the challenged sounds were definitely identified as other sounds, —
almost uniformly as the sounds in the English text. If 50% of the
sounds are sufficiently indefinite to fail the ear, the suggestive force of
the "garbled" text was 12% ; and its influence was toward right cog-
nition.
It is therefore clear that under the conditions of conmiunication ob-
taining in our experiments a large part of the perception of English
words is contributed by the mind and that suggestion is a very potent
determinant of the language heard. These facts are not sufficiently rec-
ognized in psychical research, although they are of course entirely con-
sistent with psychological knowledge.
The perception of a word seems to the recipient a purely auditory
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CONCLUSION 403
affair; yet the fact is that a more or less slender, sometimes a wholly
inadequate, auditory impression has been assimilated to psychical factors
(memory images, attitudes, motor dispositions, and other residuals of ex-
perience) which are primarily responsible for the cognition of the word,
but which cannot by introspection be segregated from the sensory com-
ponent of the perception. This assimilating process under the influence
of suggestion leads to false cognition, — to illusion. A word is heard,
both auditory and psychical components of the perception are referred
to the ear, critical examination of the auditory impression is again made,
and the word is verified — yet the word is wrong! The sotmds falsely
identified were assimilated to the wrong psychical factors.'^
The case of auditory perception is not unique, for, as was intimated
in the Introduction to this Part, all sense-perceptions involve the psy-
chical component to which the bare sensations are assimilated, and conse-
quently all special senses are capable of reporting fact that is not there.
A simple illustration from vision may help the reader to establish this
principle to his own satisfaction. He, however, is likely to miss the full
force of the experience unless he stops reading with the end of this sen-
tence and hands the book over to someone else to get the instruction and
carry out the experiment, for the psychical component can only be found
by setting a trap for it. [Stop here and hand the book over,] (i) Show
the word in Fig. 6 to the observer at a distance of about six feet, (2)
ask him to look at it carefully, (3) close the book after he has had one
"good look," and (4) ask him to draw or trace with care on paper one of
the letters (for example I or T or O) just as he saw it. Now, he likely
suspects a trick, and he may be able to avoid tracing in the outline that
is not there, but the chances are against him. Professor Jastrow '* found
that out of thirty students who were given the same test with similar let-
tering only three or four drew the letters correctly; and our students
commonly see the complete outline of the letter. Even after one knows
the form of the letters he can, if he observes in a detached mood, and
views the word at the proper distance or through narrowed eye-lids, see
the letters raised from their background and lighter in color, the omitted
boundary appearing distinctly. Under proper conditions the sensory im-
pression is assimilated to the psychical factors which preserve our ex-
perience with outline-letters and the missing outline thus mentally sup-
plied is credited to the eye.
«« Vide, Introspection No. 5, p. 399, supra.
^ Jastrow : Fact and Fable in Psychology. New York, c 1900, pp. 281-2.
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404 SOUND ASSIMILATION
Professor Jastrow, in a chapter on "The Mind's Eye," ** says :
It is a commonplace taught from nursery to university that we sec with our
eyes, hear with our ears, and feel with our fingers. This is the truth, but not the
whole truth. Indispensable as are the sense organs in gaining an acquaintance
with the world in which we live, yet they alone do not determine how extensive
or how accurate that acquaintance shall be. There is a mind behind the eye and the
ear and the finger-tips which guides them in gathering information, and gives value
and order to the exercise of the senses. This is particularly true of vision, — the
most intellectual of all the senses, the one in which mere acuteness of the sense
organ counts least and the training in observation counts most.
And after he has shown a series of diagrams illustrating visual il*
lusions and reversible perspective, he continues :
This collection of diagrams serves to illustrate the principle that when the
objective features are ambiguous, we see one thing or another according to the im-
pression that is in the mind's eye; what the objective factors lack in definiteness
the subjective ones supply, while familiarity, prepossession, as well as other circum-
stances influence the result. These illustrations show conclusively that seeing is
not whc^y an objective matter depending upon what there is to be seen, but is very
considerably a subjective matter, depending upon the eye that sees. . . . Not only
when the sense-impressions are ambiguous or defective, but when they are vague —
when the light is dim or the forms obscure— does the mind's eye eke out the imper-
fections of physical vision, (p. 294).
DJt Dfi
Fig. 6. These letters, if observed from a distance of about six feet, or through
narrowed eye-lids, stand out from their background, showing mental contribution of
the missing contour, — a mental element in the visual perception of the letters which
seems wholly sensory.
The following quotations, selected at random, will serve to show that
the foregoing discussion is consistent with psychological doctrine :
Bastian, a professor of medicine in University College, London, who
was interested in a psychological analysis of the speech function, said : ^^
Thus it happens that an object is recognized immediately or intuitively, not
so much by the mere . . . impression present, as by the blending of this with more
or less fully revived memories of other impressions which have at various times
been associated with the same object. . . .
It is therefore by the simultaneous consciousness and fusion, as it were, of the
subjective side of various new and old impressions that a present object is per-
ceived and recognized.
«* Ibid., pp. 275 fF.
**H. Charlton Bastian: A Treatise on Aphasia and Other Speech Defects.
London, i8p8, p. 27.
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CONCLUSION 405
In the same place he quotes from Bain :
When we see, hear, touch, or move, what comes before us is really more con-
tributed by the mind itself than by the present object.
Hoff ding, professor at the University of Copenhagen, said :*•
In such immediate and involuntary recognition consists perception. The psy-
chological process which here takes place may be described as the fusing of a
reproduction and an actual sensation. The percept is thus ccMiceived as compounded
out of a representation and .a sensation.
James, professor of psychology in Harvard University, said :"
Whilst part of what we perceive comes through our senses from the object
before us, another part (and it may be the larger part) always comes out of our
own mind. . . .
In the ordinary hearing of speech half the words we seem to hear are sup-
plied out of our own head.
Wundt, professor of psychology at the University of Leipzig, said :••
This type of association [the connections of an externally excited sense-
perception with its related memory-images] we will call assimilaHon, and speak of
the memory image as the assimilating element, the sensations following from the
sense-impression as the assimilated. These expressions imply that the memorial
constituents are the determining factors in the result, while the incoming sense-
impressions are determined by them. This is so far true. An i^^>ression may be
apprehended in the most different ways, according to the disposition in which the
mind has been left by previous experiences. The resultant complex idea is, there-
fore, a mixed product of the impressions given in perception and of an unknown
number of memory-images. But, just because the idea is a single complex, there
can be no question of analysis into these two constituents. Hence the reproductive
elements are invariably referred to the sense-perception, which now contains con-
stituents not to be found in the impression which aroused it. On the other hand,
real constituents of the sense-impression may be wanting in the resultant idea,
owing to their conflict with reproductive elements of greater intensity. . . .
Lastly, in all these processes of assimilation, which follow directly upon sense-
impressions, the peripherally excited sensations are so far of influence upon the
memorial elements that they increase the intensity of the reproduced sensations.
That is the only possible explanation of the fact that even in the normal assimila-
tion it is impossible to distinguish between the ideational elements aroused by ex-
ternal stimulus and those excited by association. The impossibility becomes still
clearer when the elements of the latter kind obtain so exclusive a predominance
that the resultant idea is wholly inadequate to the sense-perception. Assimilations
>* Harald Hoffding : Outlines of Psychology. London, 1891, p. 124.
^ William James : The Principles of Psychology, vol. II, New York, c 1890,
pp. 103 and 97, respectively; or Briefer Course, pp. 329, 323.
2* Wundt: Lectures on Human and Animal Psychology. London, 191a, pp.
287,289.
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406 SOUND ASSIMILATION
of this class we term Ulusions. In the illasion, we imagine that we perceive some-
thing which is not there ; that is to say, we confuse memorial elements with sense-
impressions.
Titchcncr, professor of psychology at Cornell University, said :*•
The sin^>lest kind of perception, then,— what we may call the pure percep-
tion,— implies the grouping of sensations under the laws of attention. But it is
clear that perceptions are, as a rule, not made up solely of sensations ; we see and
hear and feel more than is presented to eye and ear and skin ; the given sensations
are supplemented by images. Most of our perceptions are mixed perceptions, com-
plexes of sensory and imaginal elements; and the life of perception is, far more
than one is apt to suppose, a life of imagination.
Ladd and Woodworth, in the enumeration of the essential features
of the theory of visual perception which they advocate and credit to
Lotze, Helmholtz, and Wundt, say :••
Fourth: The incalculable, but enormous influence on sense-experience which
lies back of all the phenomena obtained for scientific treatment, whether from the
physiological, the psycho-experimental, or the purely introspective point of view,
must never be lost out of account. Indeed, these residua of past experiences, if we
may so call them, are doubtless in many cases the determining causes of the char-
acter of the new experience. They consist of obscure and scarcely recognized sen-
sations, images of previous sensations, motor tendencies and impressions, fusions of
unanalyzable elements, flighty and flitting syntheses that have scarcely the quality
of even an instinctively formed judgment; and — perhaps, above all, — ^workings of
the organism which do not result in any effect that rises ''above the threshold" of
consciousness. But it is just such unrecognized, and largely unanalyzaUe, factors
as these, which chiefly determine, not only our conduct under the direction of sight,
but also our seemingly most logical conceptions and deliberate judgments concern-
ing visual objects.
Of course these statements are not mere ofnnions ; they are general-
izations from a great mass of experimental results. With respect to
perception of words two researches may be mentioned :
( I ) Pillsbury presented mutilated words on a screen in a dark-room
to be read by his reagents, and recorded as seen. He found that *^
In many cases it was noticed that the letters which were most certain and of
whose presence the subject is most confident were not on the slide, but were added
subjectively. Occasionally no word is seen, but only detached letters or a nonsense
syllable, which is made up partly of the word on the slide and partly of letters
from the word whose presence is due to the disturbing influence. These facts show
"Titchener: A Text-Book of Psychology. New York, 191 1, p. 564.
80 ijidd and Woodworth : Elements of Phjrsiological Psychology. New York,
1915, p. 4S8.
*^ Walter Bowers Pillsbury : A study in apperception. American Journal of
Psychology, 1897, 8:362, 267.
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CONCLUSION 407
that for the individual the centraHy excited sensations [psychical factors] are just
as truly real parts of the word perceived as the peripherally excited [sensa-
tions]. . . .
The perception, then, is a very complex process, that can be regarded as the
resultant of the stimulation of the moment and of all past experience; as the
product of the reaction of character upon the present external forces.
And Bagley, who presented mutilated words to the reagent by means
of the dictaphonic record, found that **
The ccmsciousness concomitant with the apperception of auditory symbols is
made up of sensational and affective elements— some peripherally, some centrally
aroused — in connections which vary in character with different individuals and
under different conditions.
Our results are therefore in accord with both psychological doctrine
and the results of researches on the perception of language. It is safe
to conclude that owing to the dominant role played by the psychical com-
ponent in the perception of language, the ear cannot be trusted to report
correctly names or phrases, when the latter are spoken under such con-
ditions as are deemed by the recipient satisfactory for communication yet
which permit some degree of indistinctness such as is usual when
"trumpet" or "independent" voices speak in a seance-room. This applies
afso to speech and song in a hall, to foreign as well as native tongues, and
to the. method of preserving speech in an unknown tongue on a dicta-
phonic record for inspection in search of foreign words and phrases.
If supernormal capacity for the acquisition of knowledge makes pos-
sible the naming of friends unknown to the "medium," or the reproduc-
tion of knowledge in a discamate consciousness, as in "messages," which
are accepted as evidences of the presence of a discamate personality, the
fact is so important that it should not be allowed to rest upon question-
able evidence. The service of this Part should be to make clear the ques-
tionable nature of some kinds of evidence — those that do not exclude, but
rather invite, an auditory illusion which results from the usually unrec-
ognized psychological process of the "assimilation of sounds in the per-
ception of speech." This would seem to be a necessary step in the search
for trustworthy evidence, and, consequently should be acceptable to all
who are interested either in establishing the alleged fact, or in the ad-
vance of knowledge in psychical research.
For the purpose of establishing a foreign tongue (i) it should be
expressed in legible symbols (preferably typewriting) which because of
their permanent character may be inspected not only repeatedly but by
«« William Chandler Bagley: The apperception of the spoken sentence, a
study in the psychology of language. Idem, 1900, 12 : 125.
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408 SOUND ASSIMILATION
any competent linguist; (2) it should be recorded under circumstances
which meet the requirements of a scientific experiment, thus excluding
the production of the text by fraudulent means; (3) a copy of it dated
and signed by competent observers, should be immediately filed with a
responsible authority (preferably an accredited society for psychical re-
search) ; and (4) the results of all investigations should ultimately be
published in an authoritative journal or proceedings.
For the purpose of establishing a supernormal capacity for the ac-
quisition of knowledge (whatever its nature), the experiments with play-
ing-cards*' and the application of mathematical formulae derived from
the theory of probability, provide a method already described as safe and
sure."
" Vide, pp. 48 flF., supra,
•* Vide, pp. 313-4, 366, supra.
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PART V.
CONTRIBUTIONS
BY
PROFESSOR ULLIEN J. MARTIN
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PART V. ,
CONTRIBUTIONS BY PROFESSOR ULUEN J. MARTIN.
A CASE OF PSEUDO-PROPHECY.*
By Professor Lillien J. Martin.
At the time of the great earthqtiake of 1906 the accompanying
poster of the Junior Farce PKWTNOPIU of the Class of 1903, that is,
a poster made three years before the earthquake, was referred to as a
prophecy by some of the newspapers of San Francisco. As it seemed
to me of some interest to ascertain whether this was actually the case I
wrote to Mr. Johnson, a consulting geologist in Los Angeles, the maker
of the poster, in regard to the matter. His letter which I append shows
that the contents of the poster* grew out of the drawing of an infer-
ence regarding the future from the past — ^is a case, in short, of scientific
prediction and not of prophecy.
Mr. Johnson says in his letter of August 11, 1913:
"Mr. Fletcher Wagner, whom you may remember as winner in the Camot
Debate several years ago, first suggested to me the idea of a class play which
should be like the famous breakfast food, 'something different' At that time I
was full of the geologic phenomena associated with the earthquake rift which
passes southeastward along the San Francisco peninsula, back of Los Gatos, and
so toward the Pajaro River. I have seen the effects of crustal movement during
past ages along this fault line and have been deeply impressed with the topo-
graphic changes which have taken .place in this part of California within com-
paratively recent time (geologically speaking). All of this was, of course, as you
know, before the earthquake of igo6, but I realized that the fault line had been
the theatre of earthquake activities on a grand scale for a tremendous period of
time.
"What better than that Mr. Wagner, with his eye for the dramatic, should
see in this geologic fairy tale a chance for a play that ought to appeal to at least
Dr. Branner's students. Hence we sate ourselves down and began this immortal
work Fletcher composed the music, words, songs and pretty much everything
^Reprinted by courtesy of The Psychological Review, from vol. 23, 1916,
pp. 163-4.
2 See the Plate facing page 412 which gives a reproduction of the poster and
of a photograph of Memorial Arch which was taken just after the earthquaice.
411
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412 CONTRIBUTIONS BY DR. L. J. MARTIN
else, SO my creative outburst expressed itself, so to speak, volcanically. I knew
that the earthquake rift ran northwest and southeast and felt that any high struc-
tures near it would probably be toppled over in case of an earthquake. The high-
est structure at the University, except the chimney, was the arch, and that seemed
to lend itself best to a poster. I wanted the poster to be graphic, rather smash-
ing in its effects, if you will, and so pulled out one side of it and left the arch
overhanging in an impossible manner, (I hope the engineering profession will
have forgiven me this by now). Otherwise I tried to show what I thought would
really happen in case the fault line had a chill. So far as any premonitions were
concerned I know there were none. I merely drew a poster as best I could on
the evidence of geologic facts gathered in the field. As I recc^lect, the poster was
discussed considerably at the time of the earthquake in some of the San Fran-
cisco newspapers and, of course, the usual vivid imagination of our newspaper
friends called forth a long tale of the astounding clairvoyance of a Stanford Stu-
dent. Bosh and Rot. You now have the real inwardness of this remarkable
event put on paper for the first time."
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Fig. a. — Poster of the Memorial Arch made in 1903, and a pho-
tograph of it taken after the earthquake in 1906.
{Vide, p. 411.)
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LOCAL GHOSTS AND THE PROJECTION OF VISUAL IMAGES 413
LOCAL GHOSTS AND THE PROJECTION OF VISUAL
IMAGES.^
By Professor Lillien J. Martin.
Some tests recently made with three Stanford students who re-
ported that they had seen apparitions show most clearly that whether we
will see ghosts at all and what their appearance will be depends upon
whether we normally project our visual images into space or are able
to do so under the influence of a strong emotional stimulus. I give
first, in the following, what the students gave to protocol in regard to
the apparitions they had seen, and then briefly stmmoarize the results
of the tests I have made with them regarding their ability to project
visual and other images.
I. Mr. M., a special student in Chemistry.
Time of appearance of the apparition — the first Sunday afternoon in May,
1908. Quite normal in health. I was reading with much interest in Mendel^efTs
"Principles of Chemistry." That I was awake I am quite sure, as my sister had just
passed through the room and we had spoken. Quite suddenly the book seemed
to disappear, and in its place came the appearance of a man, head and shoulders.
He wore a battered sombrero and soft dark shirt, open to the second button.
About him was the seeming of brilliant sunlight and air of crystalline purity, and
the sense of high places and much living out-of-doors. Though I could not see
it, I knew that he carried a gun, probably a rifle, under his right arm, possibly
suggested by the set of the shoulder. The face was attractive at first glance,
rather handsome— or easily might have been. The skin was clear and beautifully
bronzed. He looked back at me with a clear, open, frank gaze, with a half-smile
on his face. But about him there was a swagger, a braggadocio, an insistence
upon his own importance and his will to dominate without much consideration
for the other fellow, that, though it was not consciously emphasized on his part,
irritated me and left me somewhat ill at ease. He remained quite two minutes,
while we stared at each other. The smile, somewhat superciliously amused, grew
broader, and then slowly he faded away and the book blurred back into place. I
finished the sentence and the paragraph.
Time, June 2d, 1908, about midnight. I had been out to call, had particu*
larly enjoyed the evening and had stayed late. I was sitting on the edge of my
bed unlacing my shoes. Suddenly I sensed another personality present and looked
1 The first part of this article is reprinted, by permission, from the American
Journal of Psychology, 1915, 26:251-7. For a closely related contribution, vide,
Martin: Die Projektionsmethode und die Lokalization visueller und anderer
Vorstellungsbilder. Zeit. f. Psych., Bd. 61 (1912), p. 321, and published in book
form by Barth, Leipzig.
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414 CONTRIBUTIONS BY DR. L. J. MARTIN
ap quickly in surprise and inquiry. The same man stood across the room from
me, perhaps ten feet away. The entire figure was visible. He was dressed much
as before, but without the hat or the gun. If before his self-assurance had irri-
tated me, there was now about him a conscious, purposeful, insistent masterful-
ness that I would not and could not endure. It aroused an instant and fiery an-
tagonism. My feeling was— though I did not say it— "You get out of here, quick I"
Yet I had a decided impression that he wanted something that I might give. But
he did not ask, but demanded, in impossible ways. It seemed, too, that his man-
ner was a pose, assumed as much to impose upon himself as upon me. A bit of
unacknowledged fear lurked somewhere back in his consciousness. All this, some-
how, I knew He stared at noe a moment, with his insolently irritating smile,
took three steps to the side and diagonally toward me, and suddenly disappeared.
The incident left me so irritated that I slept little. Early in the morning of June
3rd I left for the "High Sierra" on a two months' camping trip.
About three weeks later, when we reached the upper canyon of the Kern
River, I had a very strong and quite unreasonable, persistent desire to go farther
up the canyon, which was not possible at the time. This desire, after a day or so,
associated itself with a strong sense of the personality of the man described above
though I saw nothing. So compelling became the desire under the stimulus of
this association that one night, somewhat after midnight, I walked almost with-
out volition of my own, perhaps six miles up the trail in the moonlight until an
impassable stream halted me. I seemed to know that this man was there up the
canyon, and because he was there was I compelled to go.
We camped, three days after this experience, at the edge of Monachi Mead-
ows. About midnight I was awakened, very suddenly, by someone shaking me
roughly by the shoulder. I sat up. The same man stood beside me, hatless, but
with his gun. I saw the glint of the moonlight on the gun barrel when he moved.
He seemed to be in overwhelming terror. The qualities in him that had so irri-
tated me before were quite gone,— the braggart was become the craven. I knew,
somehow, that he came as a supplicant. He said nothing, nor did I. After star-
ing at me a moment, his head drooped in sudden hopelessness, and he walked
away.
On the first occasion I could not see the book through the man just de-
scribed. The second time, he was transparent, so that a chiffonier back of him
was quite visible. So, too, the third time, I saw the trunk of a tree through him.
That is, he was opaque the first time, but semi-transparent on the two other occa-
sions.
In 1901, in connection with a philosophy course, given by Dr. Lovejoy, I read
much Hindu philosophy; and I remember that Dr. Lovejoy talked in his lectures
of Egyptian religious beliefs, among others. I was much troubled that spring by
a series of apparitions. I do not remember just when or under what circum-
stances these apparitions commenced, nor how many times they occurred, but they
occurred very frequently. The details of each occasion of their appearance, what
they did and said, I do not recall. One frequent astral visitor was a Hindu, seem-
ingly a pundit or yogin; another, less frequent, was an ancient Egyptian, whom
I much disliked. Upon the appearing of these apparitions I would be first con-
scious of the eyes, from which point the rest of the figures would slowly develop
downward. Their disappearing was the reverse process, from the feet to the eyes,
which would persist sometimes much longer, at times for hours. The figures
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LOCAL GHOSTS AND THE PROJECTION OF VISUAL IMAGES 415
always were senii-traiisi>arent, though very distinct, so that objects were quite
visible through them. They frequently talked to me. The Hindu, particularly,
would deliver long discourses to me which at the time seemed the profoundest of
wisdom, but which, upon later analysis, I always found to be a vague jumble of
meaningless phrases. At first I permitted these apparitions because they amused
me, and I could banish them at will. But later they became more persistent and
I could not rid myself of them. Particularly the eyes would appear and follow
me, without the rest of the figure becoming visible, which caused me much annoy-
ance and distress. I remember quite distinctly the last occasion on which I saw
them. I was alone in the country. Upon arising in the morning about 7:30 I
went to the piano to play. Suddenly I saw the eyes of the Hindu above the
piano. Of what happened thereafter I know nothing. I found myself at 9:30 in
the evening exceedingly weary, still sitting upright at the piano. I do not know
whether this was normal sleep or of a hypnotic nature. I had had some slight
experience with auto-hypnosis, having on several occasions put myself to sleep
by looking at a bright object, first resolving to awake in five or ten minutes.* I
was so frightened by this experience at the piano that I thereupon determined
never to see these particular apparitions, or their eyes, again, nor to go to sleep
without my own volition, nor have I. I have, however, occasionally seen other
eyes. For instance, a few evenings ago I was reading in bed when a single eye,
about four inches long, appeared back and at the right side of my book. I glanced
at it and continued my reading. Presently the eye came nearer and slid over the
edge of the book. It was transparent, and the words were quite visible through
it. It persisted about ten minutes. In general in looking at persons I am quite
conscious of their eyes, as the eyes are to me the most noticeable and important
feature of the face; just as the head is of greater importance than the rest of
the figure to me. In looking back at this whole experience I see clearly that it is
all to be explained by the projection of visual and other images, perhaps with
auto-hypnosis as a subordinate factor.
As a child, from my earliest recollections to the age of about twelve, I had
a considerable number of imaginary f^ymates who seemed very real to me and
of whom I was very fond, so that I cared little to associate with other children.
To each of them I gave a name, and each was a distinct and well characterized
personality. When they finally ceased one by one to come to see me I often re-
gretted their absence and wondered what had become of them. It was, therefore,
a matter of great surprise, in 1905, to meet on the street in Palo Alto, a young
man (Dr. A. L. Munger, Jr.), whom at once I recognized as Futoni, one of
those friends of my childhood. The fancy still persists that the two are identical
And I have since met two other men who just as surely are identical with my
imaginary friends. These experiences of my childhood made me immediately ac-
cept as self-evident the theosophical idea of reincarnation when it was by chance
presented to me in later years. That this particular group of apparitions were
'We see from this experience of Mr. M. that with him as a reagent we
could doubtless easily have developed, artificially, at that time, a state of 'Trance,**
and thus have been able to study the origin and evolution of a "medium." It
would not have been necessary at the time of this occurrence to build up the "con-
trols" by means of suggestion for they were already at hand in the persons of the
Egyptian and Hindu.
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416 CONTRIBUTIONS BY DR. L. J. MARTIN
projected visual and other images, I am satisfied. As to their character, I am
still in doubt, for my early environment does not seem to me to adequately ac-
count for their content.
I add still one more of Mr. M.'s projected visual images :
After spending the afternoon of Wednesday, March i8, 1914, in the petro-
graphy laboratory working at the same microscope with Mr. H., I called upon Mr.
W. in Pak) Alto. As Mr. W. and I were walking to the street-car about six o'clock,
I saw a transparent image of Mr. H. walking just in front of Mr. W. on my left
When I left Mr. W. the image of Mr. H. followed me aboard the car, sat by my side,
and went home with me. I confess I had a strong impulse formally to present
him to my wifcu The image sat in a chair in the living room when we went in
to dinner. He was in the same chair after dinner, remaining with the family for
half an hour. When I went upstairs to read the image followed me and re-
mained until nine o'clock, when he walked out of the room.
Tests with Mr. M. in the laboratory, show: (i) That his visual
images are strong and that when he casually thinks of an object such
images are located in the back of his head, but if he thinks of the ob-
ject in detail the image of it is out in front of him, the distance away
depending upon the circumstances under which the image is seen. (2)
When he projects visual images of persons he has seen, they arc trans-
lucent. He does not usually see through such images but can easily
do so. The transparency of his hunter, etc., images, was doubtless due
to the presence of the bright light which was so emphasized as to divide
the attention as, for example, in the case of seeing the "glint" of
the moonlight on the gun. (3) When he thinks in the laboratory in
detail of the hunter, the projected visual image which appears has the
same general appearance as the corresponding apparition except that it
is slightly less transparent. The projected image in the laboratory seems
"hardly as real" as his apparition, however. He feels it is an image
of his apparition, that is, that it seems to have the same relation to it
as does the projected image of an object. The emotional experience
with its kinaesthetic accompaniments localized largely in the back of his
neck and arms (he has a very slight lesion in the back of his neck
which produces, at times, a feeling of numbness and a dull ache in his
arms), which are elements of the feeling of reality, is there but it
is much decreased in strength. This hallucinatory experience as well
as others like it show that it is not alone necessary to be able to project
one's visual images and to do it usually or very frequently in order to
have a hallucination. Mr. M. does on occasions when he has no hallu-
cinations. Other persons who have strong visual images and usually
project them have never seen an apparition. The hallucination image
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LOCAL GHOSTS AND THE PROJECTION OF VISUAL IMAGES 417
must have a content or be accompanied by an emotion which separates
it out from other projected visual images. (4) Mr. M.'s auditory
images are projected. When he thinks of a sotmd he hears it again and
it seems to come from where it originally came. (5) He can project
touch images very imperfectly.
II. Miss T., a student in the German Department, graduated at Stanford Uni-
versity in December, 1913. Early in December I was told that Miss T. had seen
a ghost I give below a curtailed account of the interviews I had with her con-
cerning the apparition she h'.d seen.
December 8, 1913, evening. My own study. Miss T. said: — ^"I was awak-
ened with a start on the night of December 5th, at 2:15 a.m. When I opened my
eyes I saw my ghost, which I had often seen before, standing in my window. He
has a high forehead, very hollow eyes, which appear to be only black blotches.
His eyebrows are very dark; nose large; very sunken cheeks, and a very prom-
inent chin. He wears a long white flowing robe. His hands are thin and bony.
I lay in bed and looked at him. He did not move. He had a long chain in his
hand. My bed is next to the window, so by putting out my hand I could have
touched him. Finally I sat up. When I did so, he vanished out on the porch
(which is off of my room) and sat on a couch out there. I got up and turned
on my light and I could still see him, just as plain as when it was dark. Then
I took my eyes off him and looked in the mirror to see if I were awake. Then
I looked back and my ghost was still sitting in the same position. I crossed my
room and turned on another light He followed me, keeping about three feet be-
hind me. I looked for the feet of the ghost but could not see them, on accotmt
of the long robes. Then I went out in the hall into another room. He followed.
While I was in this room he stood in the open door. When I came out he stepped
out of the way and allowed me to pass. He followed me until I reached my door
and then vanished."
"Were you afraid of him?" "No. He fascinates me. I never want him to
leave"
"Why not?" "I have always felt he would bring me good luck."
"Why did he come at this time?" "I do not know. But about five days be-
fore, our housemother had remarked that it was about time for my ghost to ap-
pear."
"Did he speak?" "No."
"How do you explain this ghost?" "I have always explained this as an
hallucination, yet I have a feeling that it is a spirit and have always felt this. I
feel that it comes from another world, of which we know nothing."
"What do you mean by an hallucination?" "It is a visual image so firmly
fixed in one's mind, that it appears without any conscious effort on the part of
the person."
"Did the ghost bring any message?" "No."
"Has it ever brought a message?" "No."
Room 7MS darkened. "Can you see the ghost now?" "No. But I saw a
large rectangle of white."
Second trial. "Even feeling that it would be a good omen, didn't make it
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418 CONTRIBUTIONS BY I«. L. J. MABTIN
come." (She has just written me that she has after many trials succeeded in get-
ting a visual image of the ghost but only with closed eyes.)
"Give an account of previous experiences with this apparition." "It first ap-
peared when I was about twelve years old. It was my idea of a ghost, from
stories. It has appeared since on the average of twice a year. The apparition
always appears in the window and grows more distinct each time. The other
night it was closer to me than it ever had been, except in one instance. On this
occasion, it came and sat on my bed, and was about to speak to me, when I called
my roommate. The room was dark. The minute I spoke it vanished. I am sorry
I called because I am sure it would have spoken to me. This ghost is alwajrs
the same in appearance but always carries something different. I remember that
once it had a large red book, another time an umbrella, and another time a key."
"Have you ever had any other similar experiences?" "No."
"Did you read ghost stories as a child?" "Only a few. My mother did not
approve of my reading them."
"Was there anyone who encouraged you to read them?" "My aunt occa-
sionally told me ghost stories."
"Is there any one in your family who believes in ghosts?" "No."
"What is your physical and mental condition in general when the ghost ap-
pears?" "It comes at times when I am physically well, happy, and not mentally
tired."
Tests: — Instructed her to recall in turn. Dr. Jordan, Miss McCracken, etc.,
and to see them out in the room before her. She reported that she saw each
person distinctly.
"Do they appear solid?" "Yes."
"Can you see Mrs. Hurd?" "No, I don't know her very well."
"Can you put a chair at the side of this real chair?" "Yes: It is almost as
real as the chair itself."
Pointing at a reproduction of Raphael's Sibyls, hanging on the wall, "Can
you place at the side of that picture another like it?" " In general composition,
yes, but not in detail." Repeated with Bocklin's Selbstportrait "I can get Bock-
lin and the frame and mat clearly. The frame, however, is not as clear as the
chair was."*
Miss T. remarked during this visit that she was going to question the ghost
next time. I suspect it will reply for trial showed that she has the ability to project
auditory images. Her images of touch are also projectable. She says this ghost is
a proof or confirmation of what all her reading has more and more convinced her,
namely, that there must be another world. Recently Miss T. has sent me some notes
found in her diary in regard to the ghost. February 2, 1901 : — ^"My dear old ghost
was here last night. He had a Latin Granmiar with hinu I hope he doesn't have
to struggle as I do with the subjunctive." July 15, 1901 : — ^"The idea of carrying
an umbrella in the middle of summer! That's aU the sense my ghost has. He
came bouncing in with an umbrella last night. He closed it as he entered through
my window. He was so busy seeing if he could find any holes in my stockings,
that he forgot to take his umbrella with him when he left I couldn't find it any
place in my room this morning, though I looked everywhere. I guess he came back
and got it when I was asleep." January 9, 1902: — "My old ghost amuses me so.
Last night he did a fan^ dance at my window. Then he came and rested in my
rocking chair. The nerve of him! As soon as I spoke he vanished."
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LOCAL GHOSTS AND THE PROJECTION OF VISUAL IMAGES 419
In my office two days after the tests mentioned above when I repeated some
of them with like results. Miss T. gave me her reasons for not believing the ghost
is merely a projected visual image: — i. The fact that the ghost came when she was
well made her feel it was a real ghost for she supposed projected images came
when one was tired or not well 2, The fact that she was not afraid of it also
made her feel it was real. 3. She cannot project her ghost at will or make it comt
at night when she wishes. 4. She said, after I had tested her regarding her ability
to project her visual images, that she had thought in the past that the ghost was
more real than a projected visual image but recent trial with projecting the image
of a very intimate friend had convinced her that the ghost was no more real than
the image of the friend. She added that neither the ghost nor her friend's image
follows her eyes in turning her head The ghost, she also said, followed her when
she walked away but her friend did not and then added, "she is very deliberate."
It will be seen from what has been just said, that Miss T. is ordi-
narily able not alone to project her visual but also her auditory and tac-
tile images and yet she is not able to project her ghost at will. This
fact shows that the ability to project one's images is but one of the
factors involved in the seeing of ghosts. In the case of this ghost there
is not only a favoring emotional factor which is connected with its ap-
pearing but one of an inhibitory character which interferes with its aris-
ing except on propitious occasions. The favoring and inhibiting emo-
tional complex which has prevented a very lively visual image of child-
hood from disappearing is doubtless of a religious nature. The ghost
coming, as its seer believes, from another world, is a source of intellec-
tual comfort. Through its presence she has been enabled to success-
fully resist that skepticism regarding the existence of another world
which she thinks might otherwise have been engendered by her Univer-
sity studies.
III. Mr. ^, a student in the Department of Philosophy.
Lack of space prevents me from giving a detailed account of the numerous
apparitions seen by Mr. . One observation I wish, however, to draw atten-
tion to as it is another confirmation of my opinion that ghosts arise only where one
is able to project his images. Mr. is able without difficulty to project his
apparitions into space but he tells me that the images of his apparitions and the
apparitions themselves communicate with him largely through signs. He very rarely
hears them speak. Their preference for the gesture-language was readily under-
stood when it was found that all of his auditory images were very weak and that
he is able only with great difficulty, if at all, to project them into space.
IV. Mr. B., a student in the Department of Physiology, writes :
My nervous system received such a shock, at the death of my wife three
years ago, that I could not sleep at night and listened to every noise in my neigh-
borhood. I began soon to hear a vcMce during the night, accusing me, that I had
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420 CONTRIBUTIONS BY DR. L. J. MARTIN
not saved my dear wife from her dreadful disease— progressive paralysis. At first
I thought that some mischievous person had put a megaphone on the top of the
mountain, not far from the house, and I went early in the morning in search of it,
but the voice accompanied me, and I soon found out that it was my own brain
that invented it As soon as I came to this conviction, I thought, if I would change
the subject, I must hear a corresponding change of this voice. I thought of travel
and immediately I heard: "He is going to travel," etc, repeated three or four
times. No matter what I thought of, I could hear it from outside. Now it was
clear to me that I heard my own thought I visited San Francisco and while there
consulted Dr. Pischel, who could find absolutely no difficulty in either of my ears.
The change to San Francisco seemed to have a beneficial influence on my halluci-
natioa, and today I hear only a very slight ringing in my right ear, which was
brought on 15 years ago in consequence of a cold.
Trial with Mr. B. shows that he has auditory images but is able to
project them only imperfectly.
For several years I have given as a class exercise the following
questionary sent out by the English Society for Psychical Research: —
"Have you ever, when believing yourself to be completely awake, had
a vivid impression of seeing or being touched by a living being or in-
animate object, or of hearing a voice ; which impression, so far as you
could discover, was not due to any external physical cause?"
The following is a tabulation of the data thus collected regarding
the number and kind of the hallucinations which the students have had :
Report of Stanford Students.
Hallucinations
1913
Visual 2
Auditory 37
Tactile 6
Visual and auditory
" tactile
Auditory and tactile 2
Visual, auditory and tactile
No. having hallucinations 47
" no " 53
Total No. persons questioned 100
A comparison of these reports with that of the English Society*
will show that the proportional number of persons who have had hallu-
cinations is much larger in the reports of the Stanford students. Also,
the proportional number of auditory hallucinations as compared with
the visual do not ag^ee in the two reports. In the English Report, and
I9I3
I9I4
191S
1915
Total
12
6
4
9
33
37
23
25
33
155
7
7
6
0
26
I
16
I
18
2
I
3
6
5
I
14
6
I
7
62
37
64
46
256
58
7S
42
107
335
120
•112
106
153
591
* Proceedings S.P.R., 10:25, and Parish: Hallucinations and Illusions, 83 ff.
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LOCAL GHOSTS AND THE PROJECTION OF VISUAL IMAGES 421
the same is true in Vaschide's * report, the number of visual hallucina-
tions is much greater than of auditory. In the students' reports on the
contrary, the auditory hallucinations are much more frequent than are
the visual. In view of the agreement of the students' reports in these
respects from year to year,' I am inclined to believe that such simple
auditory hallucinations as the hearing of the ringing of the door bell or
that of the telephone when they had not rung, and of the mother's voice
when she was present but had not spoken or when she was many miles
away, were overlocrfced in answering the questionary the results of
which were tabulated in the English Report, and that auditory hallucina-
tions are probably much more frequent than one would suppose from
this report
Subsequent questioning in ccnmection with the students' reports
just mentioned shows that the possibility of having visual hallucinations
is not entirely dependent upon the ability of a person to project his
visual images in the normal condition. For example, of the twenty stu-
dents who reported having had visual hallucinaticms in the last report
in the table, four were unable to project their visual images. The ab-
normal mental condition accompan3dng the hallucinations, where expec-
tation, fear, etc., doubtless played an important role, produced visual
image projection.
* Lcs Hallucinations Tcl^pathiques, 56.
» Compare Martin : Die Projcktions Methode, 128.
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422 CONTRIBUTIONS BY UL L. J. HASTIN
AN EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS.*
By Professor Lillien J. Martin.
The subccmscious is so often referred to in works on psychical re^
search that it seems to me a condensed summary of a recent investiga-
tion I have made may not be out of place in this report.
In making this study the image method was employed. That is, to
state very briefly the mode of procedure, in one half of the experiments
the observer, usually with his eyes closed or blindfolded and seated op-
posite the experimenter, was instructed to sit in a relaxed position and
let an image (visual or auditory, memory or imaginative, etc., depend-
ing upon what was desired by the experimenter), arise of itself. The
observer was not only not to arouse the image but he was not even to
know its content tmtil he saw it before him and only those images were
noted where the instructions had been entirely complied with. In the
other half of the experiments the observer was directed to arouse the
image, that is, he was instructed to decide on the particular thing he
wished to visualize and to arouse the corresponding image.
Stanford and Munich University students acted as observers.
An examination of the data regarding the ccmtent of the images,,
their mode of arising, etc., shows :
1. The subconscious mental activity reveals itself through the aris-
ing of images where the observer did not previously know whether any-
thing would be imaged or if so what it would be. Also, in the arising
of unwilled (spontaneous) images in connection with those willed.
2. Evidently, sometimes and in some persons, the subconscious
thinking responds more quickly to the task set than does the conscious.
This is shown by the spontaneous images arising more promptly than
do the willed. That is, the spontaneous image is before the observer
before he has decided what image to arouse or arises in place of it.
3. The images show that not only the conscious but the subcon-
^For fuller details of the investigation as to the theory underlying it, the
methods used, the experimental data, etc., see Martin : Ein experimentelles Beitrag
zur Erforschung des Unterbewussten (Barth) ; and Uber die Abhangigkeit visueller
Vorstellungsbilder vom Denken, veit fUr Psych., 70:212. A partial summary of
the present report was published in the Psychological Review, 1915, 22:251-8.
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AN EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OP THE SUBCONSCIOUS 423
sciotis mental activity differs in richness of content in different in-
dividuals.
4. In case of all the observers — but in some of them more than in
others — some of the material stored away under the threshold has evi-
dently remained as originally grouped, as for example when the visual
image of a particular man in a particular environment arises simultan-
eously and at once. On the other hand some of the material has evi-
dently been more or less broken up, as for example where an eye arises
spontaneously when an imagination image of a face is asked and no
other features followed it until aroused by a special act of will on the
part of the observer. In case of some of the observers the broken up
memory material, the memory elements, have been tmconsciously (shown
by the observer's great surprise at the content of the visual images
which arise) recombined under the threshold into complicated and ap-
propriate new groups. There has been not alone a breaking up of mem-
ory material but, to use Ribot's words, an "unconscious elaboration"
of it. In the observers with whom I have experimented the memory
activity evidently predominates below as well as above the threshold of
consciousness.
5. The memory and imagination material under the threshold is
evidently not all on the same stratum or level of consciousness for some
of it arises much more spontaneously and quickly and has a different
content. Here too individuality plays a great role.
6. From what has been said it will be seen that the visual image
method makes it possible to obtain information regarding the past life
of the individual, the general character and the personal peculiarities
of the thinking going on in his mind, not alone above but also below
the threshold of consciousness. The applicability of this method in the
case of a particular person will of course depend upon his ability and
habit as regards the imaging of his conscious and subconscious thinking.
7. The introspections show that the spontaneous images are some-
times the point of departure of the willed images, that is the involuntary
image that arises before the observer has decided vfhat to will acts in
the way of suggestion. This shows how important the spontaneous
images must be in our daily life. Where the spontaneous images are in
the direction of the work in hand, they must save time in that they arise
immediately and furnish material already elaborated. On the other hand
if they are not of such a character that they can be used directly in the
intellectual work being carried on or as points of departure for conscious
thinking along the desired line, they must be an interruption and even a
hindrance in the continuing of such thinking. The results show that the
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424 CONTRIBUTIONS BY DR. L. J. MARTIN
Spontaneous images may furnish ideals as regards action. In this re-
spect they may or may not be entirely helpful. One of the observers
who took part in these experiments has very strong and insistent spon-
taneous auditory images. So insistent are they that she tells me that
they led to her giving up the study of music to which she had devoted
several years, and turning to a totally different field of work. She says
that whenever she plays on the piano the spontaneous auditory images
precede what she is playing and show her how imperfect is her exe-
cution.
8. A comparison of the content of the voluntary images with that
of the ones which are spontaneous shows that in the case of the visual
images of a given observer what is above and below the threshold of
consciousness is not materially different.
This result does not support Binet's* theory regarding the nature
of the subconscious, which is that there are two personalities running
side by side, one above and the other below the threshold of conscious-
ness, as what is above and below the threshold of consciousness, as was
said, seems in the case of these observers not to be materially different.
It may be otherwise in pathological persons of course. Cases of double
personality certainly suggest this. But such special cases do not give
Binet's theory any great universality. Nor does Myers' • theory, which
has found support among workers in psychical research, that the sub-
conscious is an expression of the infinite mind and the conscious an in-
dividual matter or a very limited expression of the infinite, get support,
for as was just said what is under the threshold does not seem enor-
ihously richer in content than what is above. Nor do I find anything
in these results which leads me to suppose that tmder the threshold a
mental condition exists which makes it necessary to suppose that com-
munication between different persons (telepathy) is possible and which
would more or less be supporting Myers' theory. The results do sup-
port Prince's * theory that what is under the threshold is an expression
of the observer's previous experiences.
9. The results have a farther interest from the standpoint of gen-
eral psychology.
A, They show, that the difference and likeness between spontaneous
and voluntary images ought not to be overlooked in psychology, as has
been the case in the past, since through the study and comparison of
such images we may go below the threshold of consciousness and get
some information regarding what is going on there.
* On double consciousness, etc. » Human Personality, 1904, I, 34 ff.
* The Subconscious, 1914, i ff.
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AN EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 425
B. They throw light on what is called inattention and vacillation
of attention. We see that sometimes at least this grows out of the fact
that the person has a flood of spontaneous images and ideas, that im-
pede and even crowd out voluntary images and ideas. They explain
why the genius is so impatient of restraint and may sometimes actually
get on faster by letting himself go and also why the student in a fl^ld
of a more exacting and foreign character as regards his natural think-
ing must take himself in hand or fail altogether in his work. I take
the following in the way of illustration from what one of the observers
gave to protocol.
Als ich mein Studium begann, war es mir kaum moglich, mich in einer Vor-
lesung irgendwie zu konzentriertn, weil ich bestandig durch spontan auftretende
V. gestort wurde. Ich habe dann versucht, die spontanen V. zu verdrangen und
grosse Mtihe darauf verwendet und habe es darin bis zu einer gewissen Fertig-
keit gebracht, so dass ich jetzt spontane V. willkurlich haben oder nicht haben
kann. Sobald ich mich aber etwas gehen lasse, sind die spont. V. da und ich bin
ziemlich machtlos dagegen.
C. The dates obtained lead one to ask whether in future memory
investigations along quantitative lines the task of the investigation will
not be something more than a filling in of the gap left in the work of
an Ebbinghaus and a Mtiller, something more than a building upon the
results already obtained by them. May we not possibly be obliged to
begin again at the very bottom and repeat the work in order to feel sure
of its fotmdations? It would seem from these results that instructions
given by an experimenter favorable to voluntary effort, or the belief on
the part of the observer that he must put forth his will in connection
with the task set, while favorable to voluntary memory may have been
detrimental to spontaneous and ince versa. In short, it does not seem
entirely impossible that two persons may have equally good memories as
regards the amount that can be reproduced but that like instructions, as
for example, that effort (resp. no effort) is to be used in repro-
ducing a given material may make it appear that one person has a
much better memory than the other or indeed that neither has a good
memory.
D. Again, these results put in question the results of certain experi-
ments of Rux,* which were inspired by Ach. Rux has attempted to
measure the strength of will by using the quantitative data derived from
memory experiments without apparently making any attempt to show
how much of the work done was accomplished by voluntary and how
much by spontaneous memory.
*"Ueber das assoziativc Aequivalent der Determination," Untersuchungen ztir
Psychologie und Philosophic, Bd. II.
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426 CONTRIBUTIONS BY Wt. L. J. MARTIN
lo. The restilts have a pedagogical interest.
A. In that they show that it is possible to educate and enrich the
subconscious.
B, In that they lead one to ask whether we may not sometimes be
placing too much emphasis on the employment of will in connection
with the intellectual work to be done. When the student's work is of a
creative nature or along the line of discovery and his spontaneous think-
ing and images are in harmony with the field in which he is workings
one can think that the director of a leading institution in America which
is devoted to scientific research showed psychological acumen when he
urged the investigators working under him to take each day some time
away from their work not only to give their minds rest but to free them-
selves from the restraint of thinking in one particular narrow line.
The Image Method versus the Automatic Writing and Speaking Methods
of Penetrating below the Threshold of Consciousness,
Binet and others have used the automatic writing method in in-
vestigating the subconscious. As the image method will naturally come
in competition with the automatic writing method in investigations
along this line, I have thought it desirable to make some experiments
by this method to ascertain how it compares as regards the amount of
data yielded with the visual image method in the getting of information
of what is going on under the threshold of consciousness.
I cannot refrain before describing these tests from mentioning an
interesting case of automatic writing that came under the observation
of one of the English Department critics at Stanford University. The
critic told me she found written repeatedly on the margin and in the
body of a theme handed in to her by one of the women students, the
name of a football hero. When shown what she had written, the young
woman displayed great embarrassment, acknowledging, however, that
she was deeply interested in the young man and often thought about
him.
Preliminary orientating experiments, the results of which are given
in the note below,* were made with Jastrow's automatograph upon 17
^Instructions. Shut your eyes during experiments 1-2 below. Open your
eyes and look at the experimenter during experiments 4-6.
Method. Ten seconds were allowed to elapse after the ready signal in order
to have a line for comparison. At the end of 10 seconds the experimenter gave
the direction for experiment t. "Hold your hands still and think of nothing in
particular." When 10 seconds more had passed the pencil was raised from the
recording paper, that is, the complete experiment lasted 20 seccmds.
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AN EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 427
Students to ascertain the probability of any of them being able to write
automatically. Involuntary movements of a directive character showed
themselves very clearly in case of three of the observers. In case of
the other observers, while there were isolated cases of directive move-
ments, the involtmtary movements as a whole had a complicated and
Experiment 2. Hold your hands still and think of Roble HalL
Experiment 3. Hold your hands still and think of Encina Hall.
Experiment 4. Hold your hands still and watch the experimenter. In first
case, a circle was drawn in the air by the experimenter. 5. In the second case a
movement was made in the air from right to left. 6. In the third, from left to
right.
To avoid any movements growing out of a knowledge of what was to be ex-
pected, the above experiments were purposely made but once with each of the
observers. Nothing suggesting automatic writing was found amcHig the tracings.
Involuntary movements of directions were discernible in the records of all the
observers but they were present in every case in the records of but one of them.
Some of the records, apparenUy having no significance, were understandable in
the light of what the introspections showed the observer to have been thinking of.
Others having a more complicated character were not understandable. The re-
sults of the introspections, the observations of the observer and the tracings
which I summarize below show the large number of factors entering into such
an experiment.
(i) The length of time given for the writing was probably too short for
the observer to get to thinking strongly. (2) There was a decided preference,
by the observer, for movements in a particular direction. (3) There was a sway-
ing of the body, as a whole, which unsteadiness was increased by closing the
eyes in the case of one of the observers. Breathing and other movements may
be of a character to inhibit or compensate the arm movement. (4) Observation
showed the movements of direction were sometimes of the eye and head and not
of the arm. (5) Where the observer had not orientated himself in the particular
room as to location of the two buildings mentioned appropriate movements of di-
rection were not generally present. (6) Encina Hall was at the observer's right
but on hearing the instruction, some of the observers had a V-image of it as if
located directly in front of them, and in others the observer felt himself in the
reception hall of this building dancing a waltz, as he had often done. (7) Af-
fective elements enter in as, for example, the observer felt himself being drawn
towards a building or repelled from it because he liked or disliked it. (8) Tell-
ing the observer not to move his hands not only directs attention to his hands
and disturbs their normal movement but evidentiy had an inhibiting effect and
doubtless, in some cases, resulted in movements in the opposite direction. (9)
There may be simultaneous lines of thought each of which gives rise to writing,
one producing involuntary writing and the other automatic. This may result in
a writing very difficult to decipher.
On examining the tracings in the light of the introspections one is again
impressed with the futility of depending entirely on the results of "objective psy-
chology." As a control it is of course of value but it is evident again from these
results that one can not get very far in the study of the mind with it alone.
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428 CONTRIBUTIONS BY WL L. J. MARTIN
confused character. Nothing of an automatic writing nature showed
itself.
Subsequently experiments were made with five of the observers
above mentioned and with two other persons, which looked directly to
the getting of data on automatic writing.
Method. A soft pencil was put in the observer's right hand which
rested on a sheet of paper and was screened oflF so the observer could
not see it. An open book (Enamy Lou, by G. M. Martin), was laid
on the table at the observer's left and he was told, after hearing the in-
structions as to what he was to write automatically, not to think about
what had been said or of his right hand but to give his entire thought to
the reading of the story. The time allowed for each test was five min-
utes. In order to get material of sufficient amount to be compared with
the published reports on automatic writing, it was necessary to give this
long period. In M's case there was usually a period of one or two min-
utes before the writing began. Having been begun it was continued
until the end of the period. The slowness of the writing may be ex-
plained by supposing consciousness took some part in it. It is explain-
able, however, in another way, namely, by supposing the writing was
under the control of another set of nerves (a lower set) than in ordinary
writing. This last supposition would perhaps throw light on the pre-
liminary twitching of the hand observed in the early stages of the writ-
ing and the feeling of numbness and "asleepness" of which the ob-
server spoke and of which he tried to get rid at the end of an experi-
ment by rubbing his arm. If this be true, the twitching was an indica-
tion of the transition of the control of the hand from the control of the
higher to the lower nerve centers that ordinarily controlled the writing,
and the "numbness" to the fact that the lower centers, as regards the
writing, had assumed control.
In case of two of the observers there were again involuntary move-
ments but no trace of automatic writing. I give below the writing and
the corresponding introspection of one of the three remaining observers,
when the instruction to read was given. It will be seen, the writing is
largely an involuntary movement and shows that involuntary movement
does, without doubt, sometimes play a part in automatic writing:
("Davis on lawn") Knew my hand was moving, but did not know I was writ-
ing words. Remembered my first teacher, America Davis, and had a visual image
of her in the school-room. No KV or AV images. Recalled consciously indis-
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AN EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 429
tinctly the time I was first scolded by a teacher for walking on forbidden lawn,
and how another teacher Miss Davis comforted me by putting her arms around
me because I had not done the forbidden thing knowing it was wrong.
In case of the two other observers, there were also a few incom-
plete words written. For example, when the instruction was "Write the
name of some person whose name you are unable to recall," one wrote :
and gave to protocol :
I had to try, consciously, all the time, to keep all my attention on the book,
for I knew that something was to take place without my consciousness, and cu-
riosity bothered me a little. In one paragraph the reading was less interesting
than usual — ^my attention wandered — and I heard the name I had evidently been
trying to recall. But I have the feeling that no subconscious phenomenon pro-
duced the name — I had only succeeded in drawing a curtain between two parts of
my consciousness, so that they should eacb be ignorant of what the other was
doing.
Here the introspection shows that what was written was far too near
the threshold of consciousness to be called a case of automatic writing.
There has been, through the use of the distractor, merely a dividing of
consciousness — focal had been separated from marginal experiences.
I believe that in cases about to be given the two remaining ob-
servers, M and O, wrote automatically. My use of the word "believe"
needs to be explained perhaps. Of the personal integrity of M and O
I am absolutely certain from my personal knowledge of them and from
the report of people who have known them well for a long time. They
have, however, had little psychological training, their laboratory experi-
ence being largely confined to these and the previous experiments. It is
almost superfluous to remark that introspection extending over a period
of five minutes makes very serious demands upon an observer, even of
long trainmg. I should perhaps state that I look upon what I report
here as truly as automatic in character as that reported by any other of
the investigators in this field, Binet, Janet, Prince, etc. Indeed, I may
say, I am inclined to put more confidence in these results than in theirs
for the following reasons: (i) The observers have had, doubtless,
more training in introspection. (2) Their characters are probably more
unified and stable. (3) They have both had a university training in
science; both are earnest and capable in their university work, O's
work being regarded as exceptionally good. (4) They are quite normal.
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430 CONTRIBUTIONS BY DR. L. J. MARTIN
and (5), judging from what has been reported in connection with auto-
matic writing, I take it that more pains has been taken in these experi-
ments by constantly drawing the observer's attention to the danger of
imperfect observation, to guard against it.
The results of the experiments made by M and O follow. In case
of each experiment I give on Plate A, a tracing of what was written
automatically, in a parenthesis the content of the writing as I decipher
it, and finally the observer's introspections in connection with what he
had written. At the end of each test the observer was questioned as to
his knowledge of what he had written. Where nothing is expressly re-
corded in connection with the test the observer did not know. To
farther test the automatic character of what had been written, it was
shown to the observer in nearly every case, immediately after the ex-
periment was finished and he had given his introspection to protocol,
and he was questioned as to the presence of ideas in consciousness in
any way corresponding to it. Results with M : —
Exp. I. Imagine a landscape. In each experiment the observer was told
the imaging and recalling was to be entirely subconscious.
(The Greek letters Delta, Phi, Sigma, Mu and Alpha will be recognized in
the writing.) After being shown the writing, the observer said, "Coming out on
the street-car I read a mathematical article in which Greek letters were employed
in the formulae."
Exp. 2. Can you recall the color of the dress Mrs. S. wore last night? An-
swer. "No." Directed the observer to write the color automatically, ("la, la,
lave lave") 'The question was, *Do you know the color of the dress Mrs. S.
wore last night?" "Felt hand moving with nervous twitching, but had no idea
as to whether it was writing or what it was doing. The feeling of the arm was
uncomfortable, as though it were 'going to sleep.' ^ When I saw the 'lav* I recalled
at once that the dress was lavender."
Exp. 3. Image something. Write automatically a few words telling me
what you were imagining under the threshold of consciousness.
("death penalty") "As I read, there came spontaneous visual images, —
first of the scaffold at San Quentin; then the warden standing on the scaffold,
and a number of men, rather indistinct, moving about; then, of the black cap or
hood being drawn over the head of the man to be executed. The image of the
black cap became very strong, almost blotting out the page I was reading, and
the rest of the images faded. There was a very strong emotional reaction. In
July, 1913, I witnessed an execution at San Quentin. The images of the scaf-
fold and of Warden Hoyle were recognized. The rest of the images were imag-
inary. I was not at all conscious of my arm and hand, or of writing anything."
'The ease with which M. followed the instructions as to what he was to
write even where he was not conscious of doing so, explains the occasional non-
effectiveness of distractors. In some cases, where the distraction does not seem
to materially affect the perfection of the work accomplished, the task set is doubt-
less carried out automatically.
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AN EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS
431
Exp. 4. Image something.
('Three hills red silver Jack Gunphell") "I was conscious of some move-
ment in the hand, but had no knowledge of its nature." On seeing the writing^
observer said, ''Jack Gmipbell was a mining man whom I knew in Goldfield,
Nevada, some years ago. The mountains in this region are often brilliantly
colored."
Exp. 5. Remember something.
("Casper Kummer's funeral rain Jack") "Consciousness of movement, not
Plate -^.— Observer M.
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432 CONTRIBUTIONS BY DR. L. J. MARTIN
of what was written. Not conscious of contractions in hand. I took charge of
the funeral of one Casper Kummer, at Goldfield, Nevada. During the service
there was a violent thunder storm. I did not recall the occurrence until I had
looked at what I had written. I do not remember any 'Jack' in this connection.'*
Exp. 6. Remember something and write a fuller description than you have
previously written.
"Conscious of movement, not of its nature. Thought casually as I was read-
ing, of recent visit to Carmel, and of a man who talked interminably, saying
nothing." Evidently the execution of the task given was beyond the observer's
subconscious mind.
Exp. 7. Remember something.
("snow snow snownowshoes Salmon Lake Happy Jack snow Denny") "I
felt the long backward movement of hand, and once or twice movement of the
fingers. I did not know what was written until I saw it. I was in Sierra Co., in
December, in ten feet of snow, without snow shoes. Stayed at Salmon Lake
Camp. Happy Jack is a stage-driver with whom I rode. 'Denny* was a man
who worked for me several days. We improvised snow-shoes from pieces of
board."
Exp. 8. Put pencil in his hand and sheet of paper before him. Told him
to read in Emmy Lou and not to think of writing, or not writing.
("war with Mexico iniquitous Villa Wilson procras") "I felt a slight dis-
comfort in the arm, and knew there were occasional movements. I was conscious
of the word 'Mexico,* at least three times repeated; it was heard as though I
spoke it inside the head, not through the outer ear. I do not know at all what I
wrote.** I did not show him what he had written even after his introspections
had been written*
Exp. 9. Instructions of Exp. 8 repeated.
("Wilson silly Bryan is a chump*') "I knew only that my hand was
moving."
Exp. 10. Remember a man. Write complete sentences.
("Saw Henri Bardon at Indep riding bay") "I was conscious of movement
of the hand, not of what was written. I knew the man Henri Bardon, near In-
dependence, Inyo County, some years ago. He was a splendid horseman and rode
a vicious bay colt. I have seldom thought of him since. I did not recall him un-
til I saw what I had written."
Exp. II. Asked him to write words of Exp. 10 as he would normally write
them. Used the same pencil, same position, etc. It will be seen his automatic
writing is not greatly diflFerent from his ordinary writing.
Exp. 12. Image a man.
("Salmon River Indian white hair verrrry dirty crooked nose") "As usual,
I was conscious of movement, not of the writing. As I read, I had a visual
image" of a map of the north-west part of the state, including Del Norte and
parts of Siskiyou and Trinity Counties. I excluded this image as soon as formed.
The map was colored similar to maps in the old school geographies. I do not
know what I wrote." After seeng what he had written he said he spent last win-
ter on Salmon River in Siskiyou County. Does not remember this Indian.
« Compare Prince : The Subconscious, p. 169.
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AN EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 433
Exp. 13. Remember a church.
("Small square seven logs hig^ shake roof) "Saw several pictures of Stir-
ling City, a lumber-camp and mill-town in Butte Co., but no church. I was con-
scious of movement and of cramped position of hand; not of what was written."
After seeing what he had written he said : "They built a church at Stirling City
after I left the town; I have never seen it, but have heard it described. This
description corresponds with what I have heard of the church."
Exp. 15. Give the inversion temperature of nephilite to carnegisite. Has
used this temperature in connection with his work. Says he knows it is between
1 150 and 1400.
("1246®") "I was conscious of movement Before I began to write I heard
numbers— 1320, 1328, 1370, etc., all above 1300." Book shows this temperature
point lies between 1245' and I252'. Aver. = 1248®.
Exp. 16. Give the boiling point of tin. Observer knows it is under 400*^.
He thinks 260*. Says he has often read the boiling point in papers from the Geo-
physical Laboratory at Washington.
("224«>"). Boiling point of tin is 231 g/io.
Exp. 17. Told to hold hand still and remember something.
Exp. 18. Remember some forgotten experience of your childhood.
("Susan cried Ruth ate all her cake She get got some m") Before seeing
the writing he wrote, "A glimpse of the path to my grandmother's house, with
currant bushes at one side, in soft sunlight. No persons seen or heard."
With a view to combining the visual image method and the writing method
I told the observer to assume a passive attitude. "The same path, with three
rows of currant bushes; a tree, with general shape of an oak, with a swing.
Grandmother's house in the distance. Carrie Looney walking on the path. Hollis
Looney some distance behind." On seeing writing, said he could recall no such
circumstances.
Exp. 19. Repeated 17.
("New ssshoes got John rowed boat.") "A bit of the road in front of grand-
mother's house, where it crossed, the railroad; looking toward the river. A
glimpse of a quarry near the river. No auditory images. A sense of slow move-
ment in arm." On seeing the writing did not recall the experience but remarked
on the next experiment day that "Some three hours after the experiment, I re-
called that on one occasion, my father, the man John, some other people and I,
were in a boat on the river. He was awkward and splashed the water. I was
disturbed, fearing that my new shoes, of which I was proud, would be wet."
Exp. 20. Write some Latin sentence previously seen but forgotten.
("O olml write to Orrin Fairfield Is will dead") "I heard the scratch of
the pencil, and was much more conscious of the movements than usual, and I
was not surprised when I saw what I had written. The friend, "Will," I have
not heard from for several years. Three days ago I dreamed an unusual dream
about him and he has been much in my mind since. Particularly I have won-
dered if he were perhaps dead. I have thought of writing to his wife's people
the Fairfields."
Exp. 21. Remember something.
("Dead mouse Ruth found dead owl Burrried them") Before seeing the
writing he wrote, "I was conscious of the movements, as usual. Toward the end
I was more or less conscious of an association of the writing with a series of
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434 CONTRIBUTIONS BY DR. L. J. MARTIN
Strong memory images that arose to the exclusion of my reading. I do not know,
however, what words I wrote. A comer of the i»asture back of grandmother's
house, next the hills; a little creek, tumbling down over some rodcs; birch trees
and bushes, and a bank of ferns. Here we had a grave yard, and Ruth, Jessie,
Ruby and I buried all sorts of things with much ceremony,— a broken doU, a dead
mouse, a cat, etc. Also a little boy from across the street played with us occa-
sionally, whose name I do not recall." Did not remember the owl they buried
until he saw the word written on the paper.
Exp. 22. Remember something.
("Jobnic Glenn Johohnie Glenn") "I was not at all conscious of the writ-
ing, only vaguely of the movements, being interested in the book. I do not know
what I wrote." On seeing the writing said, "Johnie Glenn was the name of the
little boy across the street, whose name I was trying to remember in the last ex-
periment but could not and whom I referred to in the previous experiment."*
Exp. 23. Write name of my mother.
Exp. 24. Write me the name of my uncle who died in California.
("No No") "Conscious of movement but did not know what I wrote or
had I 'no' in mind."
Exp. 25. Give me some incident of my life in Indianapolis.
"I felt a slight twitching in the fingers, and then became aware of a vague
feeling of discomfort, of being somewhat troubled and uncertain."
Exp. 26. Repeated Exp. 23. Evidently he has no "clairvoyant" power.
Exp. ^, Told to recall a room and to write automatically more fully than
he had done usually.
CTwo windows Red carpet wp dowers Black hair sofa Whatnot mustnt
touch")
"A persistent, spontaneous image of a comer of the outside of my grand-
mother's house." Before showing him the writing I told him to allow a V-
image to arise spontaneously of what he had written. "Three images arose:
first, window of 'sitting room,' with canary in gilt cage; second, large heating
stove in same room,- third, comer of 'parlor' with 'What-not' of five shelves,
with shells, etc"
It will be noticed that the writing increased in size as the experi-
ments progressed in case of both M and O. This was due to the fact,
doubtless, that not only the experimenter but the observer himself found
it hard to decipher the early writing, partly on account of its small size.
The experiments that follow are those made with O, who started to
write at once without the preliminary hand twitchings that were ob-
served in case of M. The automatic writing in connection with each
experiment is given in Plate B,
• One is surprised from experiences like this that in experiments on memory
so little attention has been given to the significance of the passive attitude as an aid
to recall. «
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AN EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 435
Exp. I. After putting the pencil in observer's right hand she was told to
read.
("Compress Did") "I was conscious of no movement except the ordinary
movement felt in breathing. I do not know that I wrote or what I wrote."
Exp. 2. Image something.
("Wildness, alone never") "I was unaware of the fomiiation •f letters. I
feel tired tonight but I did not consciously put it into words.
^
U^
'lAi^iy^Q^^^'^^^^'^^
ju**v *rir
Hr^^f6r^
Plate B.— Observer O.
Exp. 3. Write the above words in your ordinary handwriting.
Exp. 4. Remember something.
CAmusing eyes. They do not tell the truth fascinating") **Merely con-
scious of movements due to breathing."
Exp. 5. Remember a man's name.
("Chapman") "I was unconscious of writing and had not thought of tlie
particular name written."
Exp. 6. Remember a man.
("Childish but old too Brags too much Disgusting.") "Do not know the
man referred to."
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436 CONTRIBUTIONS BY Wt. L. J. MARTIN
Exp. 7. Write the name of the man just described.
("Chapman") 'There is a general feeling of annoyance but it was not in
connection with the subjects written about, I do not think, but on account of the
university work I have before me to do. Lately I have been troubled by dreams
in which I was studying very hard. I have been awakened by my own talldng."
As one looks over all the writing of O, one is impressed with the idea that
what is uppermost under the threshold of consciousness during these experiments
is not of a pleasant nature.
Exp. 8. Remember a pleasant experience of your childhood.
("Never any Why should I remember No No No Never now guten Nacht"
[written in (German script].} "Heard scratching movements of the pen but knew
nothing farther of the writing. Have not had in these or the other experiments
visual or auditory images. Have not written any German script for years."
Exp. 9. Image something.
("Quite dead Dont come Funeral Are you satisfied.") "I was reading an
amusing incident in a kindergarten and was unconscious of any movement except
the usual swaying movement which accompanies breathing.*'
Exp. 10. Write my mother's name.
("Remember now.")
Exp. II. Write name of my uncle who died in California.
("why why.") "In neither of above cases did I expect to write anything.
Was only conscious of breathing movements of hand."
Exp. 12. Remember church.
("Its not where I want it Oh dear Ugly Bad color.")
Exp. 13. Write the name of the church described in last experiment.
("why why")
Exp. 14. Repeated Exp. 12.
("well cant remember.")
Exp. 15. Repeated Exp. 12.
("Just Catholic but why, why neces pas.") "I did not expect to write auto-
matically and was in every case surprised at the results. I heard the scratching
of the pencil at times but was not aware that I was writing words."
The above experimental results show (i) that while theoretically
the subconscious experience is reproduced through automatic writing
without entering consciousness, to be certain that this actually occurred,
that is, to be certain that the experience did not enter consciousness and
after such entrance more or less influence and direct the writing, one
must have observers who have the ability and the training to introspect
very accurately. (2) That the image method has a much wider applica-
bility, as it can be employed with any one who has visual and other
images, while the automatic writing method, as is shown by these ex-
periments and by others, is very limited in its application. In these ex-
periments only two out of the 19 persons were really able to respond to
the task set. (3) The image method gives more information in a given
period of time and thereby decreases the difficulty of the introspection.
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AN EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 437
(4) In the image method the experience is brought above the threshold
and the observer is encouraged to give his full attention to what occurs,
and he may be directed to observe particular things. (5) In the image
method it is not necessary to direct the movement connected with the
giving of the information into an entirely new channel by substituting
the action of lower nerve centers (centers connected with subconscious
thinking) for the higher (centers connected with conscious thinking)
which usually largely direct it. (6) In a confirmatory way the writing
method may be made very useful. The great richness, for example, of «
what is under the threshold of consciousness in case of M and O is
shown by both methods. (7) Each method also brings things to the at-
tention not brought out by the other method. The tendency of the writ*
ing movements to be at the disposal of what is in consciousness is, for
example, very noticeable in case of some observers. In case of M and
O what is below the threshold evidently plays also a role as regards the
writing.
Automatic Speaking Method Versus the Image Method.
Of some special cases of automatic speaking I have given illustra-
tions in my study entitled "Die Projektionsmethode" (p. 5, 105)..
From what is heard by the patient himself or by the experimenter, an
idea can be obtained of course of what is going on under the threshold
of consciousness. The words occasionally unconsciously spoken by a
normal person give one a similar idea. It will be at once evident, how-
ever, without any comparative experiments that the image method has
a very much broader field of usefulness because of the difiiculty of get-
ting an adequate distraction in using the automatic speaking method.
The Image Method Versus the Pathological and the Psychoanalytical
Methods of Investigating the Subconscious.
The other methods of investigating the subconscious I find less sat-
isfactory than the automatic writing and speaking methods. The objec-
tion to the pathological method, where the data regarding the subcon-
scious is obtained for example from cases of double personality, is the
feeling of doubt and even mistrust with which one often collects and
examines such data.
The objection to the method of psychoanalysis is that the instruc-
tion given to the patient to speak out everything that comes into his
mind, gives a mass of data which contains not only what is below but
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438 CONnUBUTIONS BY DR. L. J. MARTIN
what is above the threshold and farther that in applying this method no
systematic effort is made, as in the case of the image method, to separ-
ate out and classify such data.
Takoi all in all, it seems to me, the results show that the image
method offers a mode of penetrating below the threshold of conscious-
ness which is at least comparable if not superior to that offered by other
methods.
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APPENDIX.
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APPENDIX A.
TABLES.
TABLE Xllla* {Vide, p. 55, supra).
Right Guesses on Playing-Girds.
Reduced to Sets of 5a
A, Normal Reagents.
Card Not Imaged. Gird Imaged.
Card Color No. Suit W Card Color No. Suit W
Probable Number ... 1.35 25 5 12.5 22.5 IJ15 4$ 5 12.5 22.5
Reagent
1st 1000 / 4 24 5 15 25 3 24 8 12 23
2 3 28 5 15 21 o 19 6 6 28
J........ 2 38 5 20 II 2 26 5 II 23
4 3 23 5 14 24 2 26 7 12 19
5 2 23 6 9 23 I 18 3 II ^
6 2 30 6 12 16 o 27 4 10 21
7 I 19 3 12 30 2 28 3 12 22
S o 25 5 13 22 o 20 2 13 2B
9 o 26 3 II 20 I 21 4 12 26
/o 2 28 4 14 21 I 26 5 16 2a
Totals 18 264 47 135 213 12 235 47 115 239
2d 1000 // I 25 8 14 20 2 26 8 12 iS
12 I 26 7 13 18 I 29 8 15 19
J3 2 20 7 8 27 I 18 4 7 30
J4 o 26 3 II 22 I 21 6 9 24
15 I 28 5 12 20 o 25 4 14 2$
j6 I 23 4 14 25 I 29 6 15 19
// 3 25 6 II 23 I 25 4 19 22
j8 I 23 7 9 23 I 19 2 II 30
/p 2 25 10 17 19 2 24 6 II 22
20 o 24 6 II 21 I 28 5 15 20
Totals 12 245 63 120 218 II 244 53 128 227
* Deviations from this table are used in Table XIV (pp. 57 ff-)* The reductions
were made by slide-rule from Table XIII (pp. 56 if.) Only in this Table can the
gross numbers of Right cases made by the respective reagents be compared.
441
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442 APPBHOIX A
TABLE Xllld-Continued.
Card Not Imaged. Card Imaged,
ard Color No. Suit W Card Color No. Suit W
Probable Number . . . i.afi as $ 12.5 22s i^5 25 5 12.5 22.5
Reagent
3d 1000 ^i I 20 2 7 30 2 20 6 » 26
^jr o 32 I 13 id I 19 3 7 aB
^S' ^ 26 I 17 23 a 21 5 II as
^4 02971319 1266 IS 21
^5 4 30 9 19 17 4 29 II 16 18
26 o 27 I 19 22 4 26 9 13 21
^ o 18 I II 3a 2 27 7 IS iS
28 2 23 3 IS 26 I 2S £ 14 a2
2g o 24 2 IS 2S o ^ 4 7 20
JO o 20 I 10 28 3 2S 10 IS 21
. Totals 7 249 28 139 240 20 245 66 I2S 220
4iir 1000 J/ o 18 4 9 a9 a a9 & 16 19
32 s ^S 8 17 25 6 a7ia ao ao
3S a 30 St? 17 a 3a 5 ao 18
34 a a6 4 16 aa i 31 6 14 is
33 — .... I as 3 16 34 a a7 * 3 la aa
36 I 30 8 IS 16 a a9 s 17 ai
J7 a 3S S ai 13 o ao 6 11 2$
38 o ao 4 9 a7 a a6 4 10 a3
3Q .... o ao a 10 aB i 2$ 3 14 a4
40 o a4 I II a6 4 a7 6 16 aa
Totals 13 ^S3 44 Ui aa7 ao a73 S4 iSO ao9 .
Sth 1000 4' I 30 4 II 17 3 ^S 9 10 ai
42 I a4 a 13 a4 3 as 10 12 19
43 a 3a 4 la 18 o a4 4 la a3
44 o 27 4 14 19 I a4 7 12 21
45 I a4 6 10 23 o 29 3 is 19
4^ 2 29 8 II 16 2 21 4 13 26
47 o 28 I 14 22 2 28 8 15 17
4S I 27 s II 20 o 27 5 IS a2
49 I ^ 8 la 19 4 as II 17 a2
50 I 2S 3 9 a4 I 27 S la 20
Totals 10 273 45 117 202 16 25s 66 133 212
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TABLES
443
TABLE XIIIo— Continued.
Card Not Imaged. Card Imaged.
Card Color Na Suit W Cafd Color No. Suit W
Probable Number ... ijis 25 $ 12.5 22.5 1.25 25 $ 12.5 22.5
Reagent
6th 1000 5/ 4 20 7 14 28 2 22 6 13 25
5^ 3 33 5 13* 17 ^ ^ 7 18 21
5J I 25 6 II 22 I 26 5 12 20
54 2 23 7 IS 33 I 33 4 13 M
5S 2 23 4 10 24 I 19 2 10 30
5^ o 26 r 9 , 31 3 32 5 18 16
57 2 20 5 7 27* 3 21 6 14 25
S8 I 27 9 II i^ I 31 5 12 26
59 I 36 5 31 13 4 26 8 II 20
60 I 27 4 12 20 2 26 7 15 22
Totals 17 360 59 133 313 ' 19 343 55 136 229
7th 1000 6j I 26 6 14 20 o 22 o 12 28
d?. I 30 2 13 20 o 29 4 9 19
6$: 2 26 7 16 22 4 25 6 19 23
64 6 31 9 17 18 3 26 7 14 24
65 2 24 6 12 24 I 24 3 II 23
66 ..3 35 8 10 35 3 24 II 15 30
67; 3 39 6 17 19 o 18 4 13 38
68 3 35 8 10 31 3 37 5 15 22
dp 2 25 3 16 24 2 26 5 12 22
^0 2 25 8 12 22 2 18 5 II 29
Totals 23 266 63 137' 215 17 339 50 130 338
8th 1000 7/ 3 35 3 13 35 I 21 s 14 28
T2 2 22 6 13 26 o 25 3 8 25
7j I 29 5 19 19 I 30 6 9 26
7^ 3 29 6 15 18 o 29 2 15 20
^S o 26 8 13 16 .2 23 6 14 24
76 3 28 10 13 19 I 35 4 12 23
rr I 29 5 13 18 2 17 7 9 38
78 3 37 3 17 31 s 33 7 IS 36
7g o i6 5 9 31 3 26 3 13 23
^0 0 27 3 II 21 o 26 3 14 21
Totals 14 360 53 136 314 14 335 46 123 244
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APPENDIX A
TABLE Xllla— Continued.
Card Not Imaged. Card Imaged.
Card Color No. Suit W Card Color No. Suit W
Probable Number ... IJ15 25 5 12.5 22.5 1.35 25 5 12.5 22.S
Reagent
9th 1000 81 I 20 3 9 29 I 26 4 12 21
8^ o 27 3 17 20 I 26 4 13 23
8s 2 26 5 14 23 I 23 6 12 23
84 2 28 8 12 17 I 29 6 14 19
8s I 18 4 9 50 I 26 5 II 20
86 I 31 4 13 17 3 30 6 17 17
8t o 24 4 8 22 I 23 6 10 24
88 2 32 4 13 17 o 23 2 12 27
89 o 31 4 15 17 2 23 3 10 26
90 I 21 5 II 26 I 24 7 10 20
Totals 10 258 44 121 218 12 253 49 121 220
loth 1000 pj... 2 26 5 14 2t I 30 3 17 i&
9^ I 22 5 II 27 I 20 8 12 24
93 4 26 6 10 22 1 25 4 13 24
94 I 27 5 15 22 o 2p I 13 21
9S I 19 6 II 28 I 21 6 16 25
96 I 22 5 6 28 o 29 2 16 20
97 2 24 3 II 26 4 24 4 13 26
98 I 20 5 14 28 2 23 5 9 26
99 3 23 7 17 25 2 26 5 16 22
100 3 22 5 9 25 o 32 4 21 16
Totals 19 231 52 118 252 12 259 42 146 222
B. Psychics.
/ o 23 8 8 23 2 27 5 13 20
2 0222 II 26 2248 II 22
S 3 30 6 15 18 4 26 6 14 24
4 I 24 3 13 23 2 26 7 II 19
5 o 26 2 17 22 2 29 4 18 20
6 I 27 3 18 23 2 20 5 7 28
7 3 26 7 16 20 o 31 4 16 17
8 2 23 6 18 23 3 29 6 14 19
9 o 22 3 8 25 o 23 5 13 23
JO I 23 4 14 25 1 29 5 15 ig
Totals II 246 44 138 228 18 264 55 132 210
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TABLES
445
TABLE Xlllfl— Continued.
C G>nieal Reflecdoo.
Card Not Imaged
Card Color No. Suit W
Probable Number las 2$ 5 12.5 22.5
Reagent
/ 2 22 6 12 24
// I 22 10 12 21
/// o 24 2 13 25
jy 4 21 10 13 26
y I 31 6 14 15
Totals 8 120 34 ^ i"
Card Imaged
Card Color No. Suit W
1.25 25 5 12-5 ^-5
22
38
3a
24
12
30
43
34
35
8
26
37
35
28
10
24
47
31
33
3
9
33
19
16
15
III 196 151 136 48
TABLE XVfl.*
Aggregates of R Cases.
Reduced to Sets of 50.
A. Students.
Card Not Imaged. Card Imaged.
Card Color No. Suit W Card Color No. Suit W
^st 1000 18 264 47 135 213 12 235 47 115 239
2d 1000 12 245 63 120 218 II 244 53 128 227
3d 1000 7 249 28 139 240 20 246 66 125 220
4th 1000 13 253 44 141 227 20 273 54 150 209
5th 1000 10 273 45 117 202 16 255 66 133 212
6th 1000 17 260 59 123 213 19 242 55 136 229
7th 1000 23 266 63 137 215 17 239 50 130 238
8th 1000 14 260 53 136 214 14 235 46 123 244
9th 1000 10 258 44 121 218 12 253 49 121 220
loth 1000 19 231 52 118 252 12 259 42 146 222
Totals ....143 2559 498 1287 2212 153 2481 528 1307 2260
B. Psychics ... 11 246 44 138 226 18 264 55 132 210
C. Corneal
Reflection.. 8 120 34 64 iii iii 196 151 136 48
♦Comparable to Table XV (p. 64), but based on Table Xllla.
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446
APPENDIX A
TABLE XVIa*
Per Cents of R Cases.
A. Students
Card Not Imaged Card Imaged
Card Color No. Suit W Card Color No. Suit W
ist 1000 3.60 52.8 94 27.0 42J6 240 47.0 94 2$X} 47.8
2d 1000 240 49.0 12.6 24X> 43.6 2.20 48.8 10.6 25.6 454
3d 1000 140 49^ 5.6 27.8 48x> 4-00 49.2 13.2 25.0 44.0
4th 1000 2.60 50.6 8.8 28:2 454 4-00 54.6 ia8 30.0 41.8
5th 1000 2.00 54.6 9.0 234 404 3-^ 51-0 13^ 26.6 424
6th 1000 340 52X> 11.8 24.6 42.6 3.80 484 11.0 27^ 45.8
7th 1000 4.60 53.2 12.6 274 43X> 340 47.8 10.0 26.0 47.6
8th 1000 2.80 52.0 10.6 27.2 42.8 2.80 47.0 9JI 24.6 48.8
9th 1000 2.00 51.6 8.8 24.2 43iS 240 S^6 9.8 24.2 44JO
loth 1000 3.80 46JI 104 23.6 504 240 51.8 84 29.2 444
Totals 2.86 51JI 10.0 25.7^ 44^ 3.06 49.6 10.6 26.1 45^
B. Psychics ...2.20 49.2 &8 27.6 45^ 3^60 52.8 11.0 264 42.0
C. Corneal
Reflection ...3.20 48x> 13.6 25.6 444 4440 -784 ^4 544 I9^
Probable 2.50 50.0 lojo 25x> 45.0 2.50 50X> 10.0 25.0 45.0
TABLE XVIIa**.
Deviations from Probable Per Cent.
Reduced to SeU of 50.
A. Students
Card Not Imaged Card Imaged
Card Color No. Suit W Card Color No. Suit W
1st 1000 +a9o +2.8 -0.6 +2X) -24 -aio -3.0 -0.6 -2X> +2.8
2d 1000 -aio -i.o +2.6 -1.0 -14 -0.30 "la -Kx6 -K>.6 -K>4
3d 1000 -i.io -0.2 -44 +2.8 +3.0 +1.50 -0.8 +3.2 o -1.0
4th 1000 40.10 -Kx6 -1.2 +3.2 +04 +1.50 +4.6 40.8 +5X) -3J8
5th 1000 -0.50 +4.6 -1.0 -1.6 -4.6 40.70 +IX) 4-3.2 4-1.6 -2.6
6th 1000 40.90 +2.0 +1.8 -04 -^4 4-1.30 -1.6 +1.0 42.2 40.8
7th 1000 42.10 +3.2 +2.6 +24 -2.0 40.90 -2.2 o 4-1.0 +2.6
8th 1000 40.30 +2.0 4o.6 42.2 -2.2 40.30 -3.0 -0.8 -04 +3.8
9th 1000 -0.50 4-1.6 -1.2 -0.8 -14 -0.10 40.6 -0.2 -0.8 -1.0
loth 1000 +1.30 -3.8 404 -14 4-54 -0.10 +1.8 -1.6 +4.2 -0.6
Total 40.36 +1.2 o 40.7 -0.8 40.56 -04 40.6 +1.1 40.2
B. Psychics -0.30 -0.8 -1.2 +2.6 4o.6 4-i.io +2.8 +1.0 +14 -3.0
C. Corneal
Reflection 40.70 -2.0 4-3.6 4o.6 -0.6 +41.90 +284 4-504 +29.4 -25.8
♦Comparable to Table XVI (p. 64), but based on Table XVa.
♦♦Comparable to Table XVII (p. 65). but based on Table XVIa. This and
the preceding Table show by their close approximations to their corresponding
Tables XVI and XVII that the "reduction to sets of 50" has not introduced any
important errors. Consequently the values in Table XIV (pp. $7-^) may be con-
fidently inspected.
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TABLES
447
TABLE XUXa .♦
Statistical Expectation, expressed in Per Cent of R Cases, after the experiments
were concluded. (52 Reagents).
Reagent
j^ ...
33 '"
34 "
35 ...
36 ...
37 ...
S8 ,,.
39 ...
41 ...
42 ...
¥J ...
44 ...
45 ...
^7 ...
48 ...
^ ...
50 ...
53 ...
5^ ...
55 '"
56 ...
57 ...
58 ...
61 ...
6^ ...
63 ...
Card Color
. 6 60
5
6
6
10
10
5
5
5
IS
7
3
10
7
6
5
3
3
6
3
5
4
5
10
10
5
75
65
70
75
70
60
60
60
75
55
60
80
60
60
70
52
60
60
55
60
50
60
65
70
SO
No.
17
12
40
15
15
30
15
12
10
35
12.5
12
as
15
12
14
10
12
10
10
15
20
25
33
20
15
ard
TotJ^s 319
Average 6.14
% Dev. (100) +3.64
%Dcv. (so) 7^
Suit
60
40
65
30
50
45
33
as
as
^5
40
50
so
35
30
35
30
30
28
as
35
as
35
35
50
30
Reagent
64 ...
65 ...
67 ...
68 ...
70 ...
7/ ...
7^ ...
7J ...
75 ...
76...
79 ...
81 ...
*^ ...
83 ...
84 ...
86 ...
8r ...
88 ...
89 ...
90 ...
91 ...
92 ...
W ...
94 ...
95 ...
9^...
Color
334a
64.3
+14.3
28.6
No.
880.5
16.9
46.9
13.8
Card
. 5
. 5
. 5
. 5
. 8
. 3
. 4
. 3
. 10
. 10
. 5
. 3
. 10
. 3
. 8
. II
. 5
. 8
. 5
. 10
. 10
. S
. 5
. 3
. a.5
. a.5
Color
50
70
75
65
70
60
60
SO
70
70
80
SO
50
6S
75
70
75
70
60
70
75
60
60
75
70
60
Suit
1939
37.a
+12.2
344
No.
10
IS
13
15
15
15
15
10
15
20
10
as
10
10
30
2S
12
15
10
10
14
30
20
IS
w
145775
2ao
-17.0
-34.0
Suit
25
40
30
38
30
2S
30
SO
40
35
40
45
30
35
60
35
50
40
2S
^S
2S
30
35
30
SO
40
* In Plate X (p. iii), the first curve was drawn from the last line of the table.
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448 AFPENDIX A
TABLE XLI» .♦
Expectation of 52 ReagenU distriboted with Probability.
Card
X
Ntunber
X
E
^x
P
^
E
£,
P
P^
0
0
7J^
0
0
0
I
0
0
204
384
J
0
0u02
2
3^
35^
2
0
0
ai6
0^
s
17.3
3I.I
31.7
47JS
S
0
ol6
4
3^
13.5
4
0
i^
5
32.7
36.5
6j6
2ai
S
0
34
6
9JS
2.7
6
0
do
7
3^
134
0.9
3j6
7
0
0
&9
2a5
8
5^
0.26
8
0
11.S
9
0
5^
OJ07
0.3
9
0
13^
JO
19^
0
10
2IJI
13^
Ji
i^
21.1
0
0
II
0
12^
12
0
0
12
13.5
34.7
9-8
59-5
^S
0
0
0
0
13
i^
74
14
0
0
14
3^
5.1
/5
i^
1.9
0
0
15
26.9
3^
16
0
Ij9
»«
9P-8
lOOJOl
100^
17
18
19
20
^3
1.9
0
0
77
34.5
77
I.I
0.1
0
18^
09
25
niS
13.5
0
0
30
S^
5^
0
0
35
1.9
1.9
0
0
40
1.9
1.9
0
0
100.0 loao 99-88 99-9
^The dittribtttkms in this table were used to draw the curves in Plate XI
(p. I").
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TABLES 449
TABLE XLIX6— Continued.
Expectation of 52 Reagents distributed with Probability.
Color Suit
X
E
^x
P
^t
X
E
^1
P
Pt
33
0
0.033
8
0
0.001
34
0
0.046
9
0
0.003
35
0
0.087
10
0
0.009
36
0
ai56
II
0
0.026
37
0
0
0.270
0.58
12
0
0
OJ063
aio
38
0
0448
13
0
0.142
39
0
0.71 1
14
0
0.394
^
0
1.09
15
0
0.563
41
0
I.S9
16
0
0.998
4^
0
0
2.23
6.07
17
0
0
1.650
3j6s
43
0
3.01
18
0
3.53
44
0
3.90
19
0
3.64
45
0
4.85
20
0
4.92
46
0
/
5.80
21
0
6.25
47
0
0
6.66
24.22
22
0
0
749
24.83
4S
0
7.35
^3
0
846
49
0
7^1
24
0
9J06
50
1 1.6
7.96
^5
17.3
9.18
51
0
7^1
26
0
a83
5^
1.9
13.5
7.35
3828
27
0
17^
8.07
43.60
53
0
6.66
28
1.9
7.01
54
0
5.80
^
0
5.80
55
3.8
4^5
30
21.2
4.58
56
0
390
31
0
345
57
0
3^
3.01
24^
32
0
23.1
248
23.32
58
0
2.23
33
1.9
1.70
59
0
1.59
34
0
1.12
60
32.7
1.09
35
17.3
0.704
61
0
a7ii
36
0
0424
62
0
33.7
0448
6sfj
37
0
19.2
0.244
4.19
^3
0
0.270
38
1.9
0.135
M
0
0.156
39
0
0.072
^5
77
0.087
40
13.5
0.036
66
0
0.046
41
0
0.018
67
0
71
0.023
0.58
42
0
154
0.008
0.27
70
23.1
23.1
0
0
45
3.8
3.8
0
0
75
154
154
0
0
50
13.5
13.5
0
0
So
3.8
3^
0
0
55
0
0
0
0
60
65
3.8
3B
3.8
3.8
0
0
100.0
100.0
100.022
ioao2
0
0
99.9
99.9
99.960
99.96
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450
APPENDIX A
LISTS OF NONSENSE-SYLLABLES.
(Sec text, p. 374, footnote 8.)
The ''pav'' List.
I
I pav
2 tez
3 cheen
4 kire
5 fabc
6 so je
7 lis:
8 med
9 wun?
lo yajd
6
I ligd
2 mitcht
3 wazd
4 bort
5 dant
6 joord
7 gand
8 vobde
9 zulb
lo raid
2
bote
dotch
jcek
ifafe
vcm
zile
roos
nalt
pronch
vrap
7
ncvd
yast
kosp
chith
pclj
bulf
tusp
fask
sadhe
leets
3
brum
plike
sprote
thell
blup
troitch
slafe
shabe
splcj
drav
8
moosh
wimd
vumpt
zogd
Tcng:
brud
plaz
krim
prasr
bliv
The "shug" List.
I 2 3
I shtis: pudh* stis:
2 duf duzh lus
3 Sfub bup nuth
4 chud zuk thush
5 thul dhuv shuf
6 tus fush kutch
7 vutch vum puzh
8 kun chuz fub
9 sut mudh zhum
lo nij jur dup
* Vocalized tk, as in tlu, is written dk.
4
krig
stnizz
dhanc*
klore
skradd
fless
8TUPP
sklatt
spritch
slick
9
CTun
klare
frast
ffluf
thisk
skeft
splush
hoovd
stalt
ncpt
4
lun
tuz
rud
guk
chut
buth
zhul
ruv
tuj
dhur
5
friss
skell
hib
whaj
pixe
tept
chakt
kimpt
fint
seft
lO
flates
dhald
sprix
shond
whart
spand
trutcht
drazd
dempt
junt
5
vus
judh
kush
nui:
zul
sruj
muv
tur
zhuf
nup
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TABLES 451
The "shug" List — Continued.
6
7
8
9
lO
I .
suth
fup
dush
dhus:
dhub
2 .
lut
kuzh
thuv
zhud
shul
3 •
shub
pum
jun
tul
fum
4 •
juk
suf
rutch
fudh
zhup
5
zum
zug
zud
puj
thun
6 .
buzh
mub
budh
dut
grutch
7 •
dhun
chus
puz
juf
vur
8 .
kuz
nuk
gruth
rus
nuzh
9 •
mur
thut
lutch
buv
chuth
lO .
shud
luj
vuk
sush
muz
The "su" and '
im" Lists.
I
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
lO
I .
su
gu
du
zu
mu
chu
shu
zhu
bu
ju
2 .
. ku
vu
fu
tu
thu
dhu
nu
pu
lu
ru
3
ru
lu
pu
nu
dhu
thu
tu
fu
vu
ku.
4 •
• ju
bu
zhu
shu
chu
mu
zu
du
gu
su
S •
su
ku
ru
ju
su
gfU
vu
lu
bu
ku
6 .
. du
fu
pu
zhu
gu
zu
tu
nu
shu
vu
7 •
mu
thu
dhu
chu
du
chu
dhu
thu
mu
fu
8 .
shu
nu
tu
zu
zu
zhu
pu
fu
du
tu
9 •
. bu
lu
vu
gru
mu
ju
ru
ku
su
thu
lO ■
chu
shu
zhu
bu
ju
dhu
nu
pu
lu
ru
I
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
la
I .
ur
ul
up
un
udh
uj
ub
uzh
ush
uch
2 .
. uth
US
uk
ur
uj
um
ng
uv
ul
ub
3 •
ut
ud
uf
up
uzh
uz
uz
ut
un
ush
4 •
. uf
um
uth
udh
uch
ud
uch
udh
uth
um
S •
uv
ush
un
ut
uz
u&
uzh
up
uf
ud
6 .
, uk
ub
ul
uv
ug
us
uj
ur
uk
us
7 •
us
Uff
ud
uz
um
uch
ush
uzh
ub
uj
8 .
. uk
uv
uf
ut
uth
udh
un
up
ul
ur
9
ur
ul
up
un
udh
uth
ut
uf
uv
uk
lO .
uj
ub
uzh
ush
uch
um
uz
ud
Uff
us
Pror
lounce ch as in
sh " "
zh " "
churn
shut
azure
so
or such,
" brush
" us.
Pronounce j as in jump or
g " " gulf "
th " " thud "
dh " " thus •*
judge,
cog.
myth,
scythe.
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APPENDIX B,
EXPERIMENTS IN LONG-DISTANCE THOUGHT-
TRANSFERENCE
It is much to be desired that investigators should give attention to obtaining
more results in this branch of the inquiry. For independently of the fact that re-
sults of the kind form an indispensable link between instances ot thought-transfer-
ence at close quarters and the more striking spontaneous cases at a distance, it is
important to observe that in experiments of the kind described in the present
chapter the gravest objection which is at present urged, and may fairly continue to
be urged, against most experiments at close quarters — ^viz., the risk of unconscious
apprehension through normal channels — is no longer applicable. Moreover, the
results can only be attributed to fraud on the extreme assumption that both parties
to the experiment are implicated in deliberate and systematic cdlusion. — ^Fkank
Podmoie: Apparitions and Thought-Transference, 1894, pp. 106-7.
Further experiment is much to be desired, and those of your readers who are
interested in the subject can confer no greater benefit on psychical research than
by themselves carrying out experiments on thought transference at a distance, and
so adding to the reliable criteria for telepathic communication. — Mabgaset db G.
Vkkrall: London Doily News, September 6, 191 1; also Journal S.P.R., October
1911, 15:132.
EXPERIMENTS IN LONG-DISTANCE THOUGHT-
TRANSFERENCE.
There have been reports in the professional literature ot long-
distance thought-transference, and ever since the time of Paracelsus^
belief has been expressed that distance is no barrier to the transference
of thought.
Consequently, when an opportunity occurred (February, 1914) some
experimental results were gathered. Unfortunately, some of the pros-
pective reagents did not find it possible to take the series, and others
were unable to finish it. What data there are, however, are not widiout
value, and the method of experiment merits record. Results from this
method become comparable to the large amount of statistical data already
accumulated and can therefore be readily evaluated and interpreted.
^"By the magic power of the will a person on this side of the ocean may
make a person on the other side hear what is said on this side ;" and The ethereal
body of a man may know what another man thinks at a distance of 100 miles and
more.**— Paracelsus.
452
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LONG-DISTANCE THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 453
Method.
The following letter was sent out to "sensitives" who had signified
their interest and desire to aid in the investigation :
Leland Stanford Junior UNiVEKsmr
Department of Psychology,
Division of Psychical Research.
Stanford University, Calif, January 1914.
A personal note to the sensitive :
The accompanying instructions for an experiment in Long-Distance Thought-
Transference will seem upon the first reading rather complicated. A second read-
ing, together with a little study and a few trials by yourself, will, I trust, smooth
things out.
You will understand that at 8 o'clock p.m., to the second, and at each 5-
minute interval after, the period of impression is to begin ; it should not last over
one minute, and it may be shorter if you get a reliable impression in less time. Then
you record a card (like R5H for Red five of hearts) in its proper place in the
Record Sheet; then you write out your introspections on this single experiment
Be careful not to let the writing of introspections break into the period of im-
pression, because that period corresponds to the time (one minute) during which
the experimenter here (in Palo Alto) is holding the card pertinent to that ex-
periment
Common playing-cards are used; the face or court cards are discarded, leav-
ing the 40 cards with spots i to 10.
After the card is drawn by chance for the experiment, the experimenter may
look at it or not, as controlled by the odd numbers of a die which he shakes in a
dice-box. Thus some opportunity will be given for clairvoyance. The experi-
menter keeps a record of the card, whether it was entertained in his mind, in what
kind of imagery it was entertained (visual if Uke a picture seen, auditory if like
a name heard, kinsesthetic if Uke an impulse of the vocal organs to speak the name
of the card). In some definite cases the imagery of the card will be mixed.
Let the experimentation begin February 2d, and continue daily for all schod
days (thus omitting Saturday and Sunday) until and including February 13th,
when, at the rate of ten each evening (a complete series) the whole set of 100 ex-
periments will be complete. Since others are also taking the experiments, in San
Francisco, in Healdsburg, in Richmond, etc., kindly permit nothing except the
greatest necessity to break the appintments.
Before experimentation begins each evening, record in the last column on the
Time Chart the number of seconds your watch is fast or slow: that will be the
point at which, for the evening, your period of impression will begin; "time" must
be got each day, and the watch set to the nearest minute. (In setting the watch
keep the minute-hand with the second-hand, so that when the second-hand points
to 60 the minute-hand will be precisely over the minute mark ; then yon will not
be in danger of taking the wrong minute for the impression.) Keep a record of
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454 APPENDIX B
all changes in regulating your watch, etc., as you arc instructed on the sample Time
Record
Records may be made throughout in pencil. At each sitting the state of the
health and mind should be recorded opposite the date, on the Record Sheet.
Your interest in scientific investigation is attested by your willingness to take
part in this experimentation, and you may be assured that your results, with those
of others, will help to determine something in regard to unrecognized mental (?)
powers.
Very truly yours,
John E. Coovbs,
Fellow in Psychical Research.
Accompanying the letter were sent five inclosures :
1. Instructions for an experiment in Long-Distance Thought-Transference.
2. Sample Time Record.
3. Time Record blank.
4 Record Sheet
5. Sheets for introspections.
I. Instructions for on experiment in Long-Distance Thought-Transference.
Precisely at 8 o'clock sit quietly and comfortably at a table or with a writing
pad, clear the mind of all impressions and trains of thought, and settle down to a
quiescent state alert only for the impression of some playing-card (with spots from
I to lb). Use from a quarter to one minue in getting this impression.
Record the impression in the first space in the first column of the Record
'Sheet (it is the first experiment in the first series of ten) by color, number, and
suit, (as, for the ten of hearts, RioH). Keep this record out of sight, hence-
forth, so as not to be influenced unconsciously by it; bring it into view only when
you have to record another impression or guess. To do this you can keep it cov-
ered with the sheets for introspections.
Every experiment will be represented by a line on the Sheets for Introspec-
tions. The introspection is a description of your impression, and what you feel it
to be worth; e. g., the columns are headed i, 2, a, b, c, d, 3, a, b, which are to be
filled out on the appropriate line as follows:
I. Was the mind in a receptive mood during the interval of impression?
a. a. What kind of an impression was it: Visual (like a picture seen), aud-
itory (as hearing a voice speak the name of the card), or kinaesthetic
(impube for the^vocal organs to go through the motions of pro-
nouncing the name of the card) ?
b. How vivid was the impression? (Grade A for high, D for low, B and
C for intermediate grades).
c. Did the impression come
(i) At the beginning, middle, or end of the period?
(2) Slowly or quickly?
(3) Was it persistent or intermittent?
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LONG-DISTANCE THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 4515
d. Record by initial where the picture or voice constituting the impression
(if it is not merely an impulse to speak the name of the card) seems
to be located (». e., if in front about reading distance, record : f. i ft.)
using the terms, front, back, right, left. (This you note applies to
visual and auditory impressions. The impulse to speak the name of
the card is, of course, an impression located in the throat and mouth).
3. a. What do you feel that this impression is worth? How much better
chance than a pure guess do you feel it has of being right? (Grade
A for high, D for low, etc.)
b. If the grade is A or B, note briefly just why it seems so much better
than others.
The introspections are to be written each time just after the card is recorded
— ^use initials (as, b. for beginning). Practice by yourself for a few times before
the experiments begin will make the matter easy for you. Anything that occurs
to you as being important for which there is no provision on the sheets, kindly note
on other paper, keeping the number of the experiment and of the series.
At five minutes after 8 o'clock the interval begins for another experiment;
and thereafter every five minutes, until 10 are completed (a full series). The
first evening only the first series will be done; on the second evening the second
series of ten will be performed, etc (A series on the Record Sheet is numbered
at the top; the single experiments at the side. On the sheets for introspections
both series and experiments are numbered at the side.) (Always be sure in writ-
ing introspections that your experiment number corresponds with that in your
Record Sheet.)
After the impression period of not over a minute a card must be recorded,
even if no impression was received; in this case no entries need be made in col-
umns 2, a, b, c, d, of the Sheet for Introspections, but in $» <»* ^ record "pure
guess."
Put your name on each sheet of paper you use as a record.
Return all records and instructions after the experimentation is completed.
2. Sample Time Record.
Date
Hour Time
(Compared*
Time of Watch
Watch set to
February, 1914.
Period of Impression
Begins
2
12
12- 3-20
12-00-20
20 sec. after the min.
3
12
12- I-4S
II-S9-4S
15 sec before the min.
4
12
11-58-30
12-00-30
30 sec after the min.
♦The time when the "time" is taken may be 12 or 5 or any regular hour when
telegraphic time is received at the telegraphic instrument (at Western Union Of-
fice) or is sounded by a municipal gong. (Here in Palo Alto the time is sounded
by the first of three taps of a gong — heard all over town — at the hours of 8, 12,
and 5).
In case one must resort to a clock contrdled by telegraphic time, he should
ascertain when the clock is automatically set, how much in error it is possible
for it to be, satisfy himself by inquiry that he can get true time from it, and take
time regularly at his most convenient hour, every day of experimentatioa.
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456
APPENDIX B
It is olnriotis that the Time Record win establish the fact of coincidence for
the subject's and experimenter's experimental periods, and will indicate what the
extent of error may be. The record of the running of the watch is important
If the watch is regulated faster or slower, that fact should be recorded on the
lower part of the Time Record Sheet, together with the date, hour, and direction
of regulation (as provided on the Sheet).
It would be advisable to take time regularly several days before the experi-
ments begin, and regulate the watch to reasonable accuracy; then refrain from
regulation during the wedcs of experimentation.
S. Time Record BUmk.
February, 1914.
Date
Hour Time
Compared
Time of watch
Watch set to
Period of impression
begins (according to
your own time)
•
3
4
5
5
9
10
•
II
13
13
Watch Was Regulated.
Date
Hour
Faster or slower
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LONG-DISTANCE THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE
457
4, Record Sheet.
U#e initials, and record (i) color, (2) number, (3) suit; as, B3S for "Black
Three of Spades."
1. Date
2. Date
3. Date
Condition
Condition
Condition
Condition
Condition
6. Date...
.... 7. Date...
.... 8. Date...
9. Date...
10. Date...
Conditi<
Conditic
Conditi<
Conditi<
Conditi<
>n...
Ml...
ytk, « .
4. Date
5. Date
>n...
)n...
I
2
3
4
5
I
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
6
7
8
9
10
I
2
3
4
5
6
8
9
10
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45B
APPENDIX B
5. Sheets for Introspections.
Series
Experi-
ments
I
2
3
a
b
c
d
a
h
1
I
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
I
2
3
2
^
Results.
Three reagents contributed results. The first, who lived in Hcalds-
burg, about 90 miles from the experimenter's position, faithfully carried
out the complete program, sitting an hour on each of the appointed even-
ings, and sent in the results of 100 experiments, with introspections.
The second, who lived in the city of San Francisco, 27 miles away, sent
in results of 36 experiments, and the third, who lived in Richmond, 35
miles away, sent in results of 13 experiments.
The results of the one complete set are pven below :
• Card Not Imaged Card Imaged
Card Color No. Suit W Total Card Color No. Suit W Total
R Cases ... 5 23 10 13 19 46 o 32 2 15 21 54
Reduced* ..5 25 11 14 20 50 o 30 2 14 19 50
Dev +3.75 o 46 +1 -2 -1.25 +5 -3 +1 -3
The deviations in the last line are comparable with those in Table
XIV.«
*Both sides of the table reduced to even sets of 50 experiments.
«Si#Ara,pp. S7ff.
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LONG-DISTANCE THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE 459
The results in aggregate for the three reagents follow :
Card Not Imaged Card Imaged
Card Color No. Suit W Total Card Color No. Suit W Total
R Cases ... 5 36 12 19 26 67 o 47 5 23 33 82
% 746 537 17^ 284 38.8 o 574 6.1 28.0 40.2
Dcv +4.9(5 -¥3,7 +7.8 +34 -6.2 -2.5 +74 -3.9 +3.0 -4.8
Both sides of table combined:
R Cases 5 83 17 42 59 I49
% 3.3s 5S7 11.4 38.2 31^6
Dev +0.85 +5.7 +14 +3.2 -54
Limit of Chance Dev +5.00+17. +10. +15. -17.
It will be noted that all complete hits (5) occurred in the "Card Not
Imaged" experiments and that on the same side of the table Number
has the larger deviation (in the complete set) and Suit also (in the ag-
gregate results). Therefore, the positive deviations point niore strongly
toward lucidity than toward thought-transference, in case they are to be
considered of any weight. This is doubtful, however, since the devia-
tions of all tables are exceeded by both inductive and theoretical chance
deviations. When the two sides of the table are aggregated, as in the
last table, in order to decrease the chance deviations by increasing the
number of total cases, we find that the positive deviations decrease and
that they do not exceed a third of the limit of chance deviations ; about
16% of the positive chance deviations of a large number of sets would
be found to be larger.
The Introspections show that judgments were based upon imagery
in three modes, visual, auditory, and kinaesthetic, and that it was usually
in indifferent intensity. There were a few highly graded judgments,
however, in the completed set: Series 6, Experiment 10, in which the
impression came vividly at the end of the interval in both auditory and
visual forms ; 9:1 and 9 : 10, in which it came in dual mode, also,
quickly and vividly. These factors of certainty are among those pointed
out by both the normal reagents and the psychics, in the larger series of
experiments. These three judgments were right in two colors and one
suit only. Of the five complete hits, three were g^ven the lowest grade,
and two were pure guesses. The psychic suggested several reasons why
her series might not be satisfactory; (i) Time was not exact; (2) She
was unfamiliar with playing-cards; (3) The time of impression (one
minute) seemed to her rather short; (4) Hitherto messages had come to
her simply as "mental impressions," not as visual or auditory imagery.
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460 APPENDIX B
Yet, if the time was sufficiently accurate to insure coincidence of a sub-
stantial proportion of the interval of impression, as it seems to have
been, the set should have offered a fair opportunity for thought-transfer-
ence to show itself. One of the reagent's many experiences suggests
that the distance, at least, need not have been prohibitive: in the year
1903 her husband left for Denver, about 960 miles distant, to be gone
several weeks, leaving her alone in the house. One night, after she had
retired very early and had fallen asleep, she was aroused by hearing, as
she thought, her husband's voice calling her name from the adjoining
room. She replied, asking what he wished, and received plainly the re-
ply "I am all right." Then she realized that she was alone, heard the
clock strike nine, and quickly fell to sleep again. The next day the
papers reported the collapse of a g^reat tent, in which she knew he would
be, and the miraculous escape of many persons from death. She then
understood the message. Upon his return he inquired if she got his mes-
sage sent on the given night at ten o'clock, which, with allowance for
difference in longitude, was considered coincident with her experience.
This method of experiment for long-distance thought-transference
offers opportunity for proof of the objective existence of the phenom-
enon, and, also, because of the elimination of spatial difficulties, for proof
of thought-transference between persons who consider each other es-
pecially en rapport.
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APPENIDIX C
GROUNDS FOR SOENTIFIC CAUTION IN THE
ACCEPTANCE OF THE **PROOP OF
THOUGHT-TRANSFERENCE.
For the benefit of the reader who has felt more or less dissatisfac-
tion with the writer's reserve in his treatment of the telepathic hypothe-
sis, or has read the quotations in the introduction to Part I ^ with im-
patience, it has been thought advisable to present here in the Appendix
some of the more specific grounds for scientific caution ; he will then be
in a position himself to exercise his own judgment as to whether scien-
tific caution in the acceptance of thought-transference as a fact is justi-
fied by a bit of the history of its investigation.
From the time of the "First Report on Thought-Reading" * by the
Committee of the Society for Psychical Research, prominent psychical
researchers, including the members of the Committee, have from time
to time coimseled caution in the acceptance of the current evidence as
proof of thought-transference.
In that "First Report" conununicatcd by Barrett, Gumey, and
Myers, the Committee said :
Hesitation in accepting any facts so novel, and, in many ways, suspicious, as
mind-reading, is, of course, perfectly justifiable; and we are prepared to expect
much criticism and prolonged experiment, before any generalization from the facts
can meet with wide acceptance.*
In 1886 Gumey wrote :
The part of the map that science leaves blank, as terra incognita, is the very
one which amateur geographers will fill in according to their fancy, or on the re-
ports of uncritical and untrustworthy explorers. The confidence of ignorance is
always pretty accurately adjusted to the confidence of knowledge. Whenever the
expert can put his foot down, and assert or deny with assurance, the uninstructed
instinctively bow to him. He fearlessly asserts, for instance, that the law of the
conservation of energy cannot be broken ; the world believes him, and the inventors
of perpetual-motion machines gradually die off. But suppose the question is of pos-
1 Supra, pp. 3 ff.
2 July 17, 1882. Proceedings S, P. R., 1882, i : 13 ff.
» Op. cit., p. 17.
461
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462
APPENDIX C
siblc relations of human beings to inanimate things or to one another, new mode^ of
influence, new forms of sensitiveness. Here responsible science casi give no confident
denial ; here, therefore, irresponsible speculation finds its chance. It has, no doubt, mod-
ified its language under the influence of half a century of brilliant physical discov-
ery. . . . Speculation here is not only easy; it is, unfortunately, also attractive.
The more obscure phenomena and the more doubtful assumptions are just those
on which the popular mind most readily fastens ; and the popular tongue rejoices
in terms of the biggest and vaguest connotation. Something abo must be set down
to a natural reaction. Even persons whose interest has been earnest and intelligent
have found scientific morale hard to preserve, in departments surrendered by a
long-standing convention to unscientific treatment. Thus, in their practice, they
have come to acquiesce in that surrender, and have dispensed with habits of cau-
tion for which no one was likely to give them credit; while in their polemic they
have as much resented the stringent demands for evidence, in which their oppon-
ents have been right, as the refusal to look at it when it is there, in which their
opponents have been wrong, (pp. 4-5).
[The serious student of psychical phenomena] finds himself more or less in
contact with advocates of new departments who ignore the weight of the presump-
tion against them — ^who fail to see that it is from the recognized departments that
the standard of evidence must be drawn, and that if speculation is to make good
its right to outrun science, it will certainly not be by impatience of scientific
canons, (p. 6).
Telepathy as a system of facts is what we have to study. Discussion of the
nature of the novel faculty in itself, and apart from particular results, will be as
far as possible avoided. That, if it exists, it has important relations to various
very fundamental problems — ^metaphysical, psychological, possibly even physical —
we can scarcely doubt. So far from the scientific study of man being a region
whose boundaries are pretty well mapped out, and which only requires to be filled
in with further detail by physidogists and psychologists, we may come to perceivte
that we are standing only on the threshold of a vast terra incognita, which must
be humbly explored before we can even guess at its true extent, or appreciate its
relation to the more familiar realms of knowledge. But such distant visions had
better not be lingered over. Before the philosophical aspects of the subject can
be profitably studied, its position as a real department of knowledge must be amply
vindicated. This can only be done by a wide survey of evidence; the character
of the present work will therefore be mainly evidential, (pp. 7-8)*
Lodge, in 1909, said:
An attitude of keen and critical inquiry must continually be maintained, and
in that sense any amount of scepticism is not only legitimate but necessary.*
It is clear that the prominent investigators in the Society for
Psychical Research who have been won over to the telepathic hypothesis
appreciated to the full the general methods of science and yet regarded
*Gurney, Myers, and Podmore: Phantasms of the Living, vol I. London,
1886.
•Lodge: Thought-Transference. Forum, 1909, 41:62,
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GROUNDS FOR SCIENTIFIC CAUTION 465
the evidence for thought-transference as fulfilling the scientific criteria
of proof. It is true that in agreement with the first Presidential Address
delivered before the Society by Professor Sidgwick, on July 17, 1882,
they have been at no time content with evidence of the best quality, biit
have always desired "a great deal more of it," since "the educated
world, including many who have given much time and thought to this
subject, are not yet convinced." "What I mean by sufficient eTjidence,"
said Professor Sidgwick, "is evidence that will convince the scientific
world." •
How far the scientific world is from being convinced is indicated
by the fact that scientific men in general pve the subject no attention
in either their professional lecturing or their professional writing ; even
those scientific men into whose peculiar field of work telepathic phenom-
ena properly fall either do not mention the subject at all in their text-
books, or do so only to illustrate the factors involved in illusion or de-
lusion. The writer recalls no text-book or other professional psycho-
logical literature (outside of M'Dougall's "Body and Mind," London,
2d ed., 1913, p. 349) which refers to thought-transference as a recog-
nized phenomenon. It is evident that either scientific men are over-
cautious, or the evidence is faulty.
Let us examine a few characteristics of the evidence.
The Creery Experiments.
In the "Phantasms of the Living" Edmund Gumey wrote :
I have dwelt at some length on our series of trials with the members of the
Creery family, as it is to those trials that wc owe our own conviction of the pos-
sibility of genuine thought-transference between persons in a normal stated
In the same place (p. 25) the able authors present a "Table Show-
ing the Success Obtained when the Selected Object was Known to One
or More of the Investigating Committee Only," in which are tabulated
the trials made with the Creery sisters (Mary, Alice, Emily, and Maud)
and a young maid-servant (Jane Dean), about twenty years of age, of
the Creery household, at their home, in Buxton, at Cambridge, or in
Dublin. The aggregate is 497 trials, the most probable number of suc-
cesses is 2y, the actual number of successes is, for the first guess 95, for
the second 45, for either first or second 140. The "probability of obtain-
ing by mere chance the amount of success which the first guesses gave,""
• Proceedings S. P. R., 1882, i : 9.
▼Vol. I, p. ag.
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464 APPENDIX C
is recorded as .000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,01. The eminent mathe-
matician, Mr. F. Y. Edgeworth, who made the final calculations of prdty-
ability said :
These figures more impressively than any words proclaim the certainty that
the recorded observations must have resulted either from collusion on the part of
those concerned (the hypothesis of illusion being excluded by the simplicity of
the experiments) or from thought-transference of the sort which the investigators
vindicate.*
The authors point out that collusion between the members of the
family will not account for the success when the objects guessed were
known only to the investigators (at various times. Professor Barrett,
Professor and Mrs. Sidgwick, Professor Balfour Stewart, Professor Al-
fred Hopkinson, Mr. and Mrs. F. W. H. Myers, and Edmund Gumey),
and not to any member of the family ; * and that, judging from the re-
sults, the conditions for success seemed to be no better when one or
more members of the family also knew the object, name, number, or
card to be guessed; tmless it were Rev. Creery, whose integrity was
above question, when they seemed decidedly better.**
The conditions of experiment may be seen from the following quo-
tations from the published record :
The second series of experiments (made on April 13, i882) which we venture
to think are unexceptionable, were made by Mr. Myers and Mr. Gumey, together
with two ladies who were entire strangers to the family. None of the family knew
what we had selected, the type of thing being told only to the child chosen to
guess. The experimenters took every precaution in order that no indication, how-
ever slight, should reach the child. She was recalled by one of the experimenters
and stood near the door with dbwncast eyes. In this way the following results
were obtained.**
Out of 14 guesses on playing-cards, 9 complete guesses were made
in the first guess (sometimes a second or third guess was allowed).
Another quotation from the record by Professor Balfour Stewart:
After the first visit, one of my colleagues at Owens Cc^lege remarked that it
would be more conclusive if the thought-reader, instead of turning her face to the
company, turned her face to the wall; and that was accordingly done on the sec-
ond occasion. The percentage of success was about as large as in the first instance.
In one case, while the thought-reader remained behind the door, a card was chosen.
• Op. cit., p. a6.
» Op. cit., pp. 22-3.
10 Op. cit., pp. 26-7.
" Proceedings S. P. R., i88a, 1 122.
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GROUNDS FOR SCIENTIFIC CAUTION 46S
I chose the "ace of hearts/' and the paper on which it was written down was
handed round to the company. The thought-reader in a few moments called out,
"Ace of hearts!"
These are all the experiments that I have to bring before you. While they
cannot stand upon the same footing as those of Professor Barrett and his col-
leagues, they may be considered, I think, as corroborative of the experiments of
these gentlemen. At any rate, if they are objected to, it will be necessary for our
opponents to extend somewhat the area of untrustworthiness. I have no doubt when
this operation is done again and again the objectors will get tired of it, and the
laugh will then be turned against themselves.^*
In the Committee's Second Report, they say:
We fully agree with our critics that both conscious and unconscious deception
must be most carefully guarded against in all these cases. We shall continue id
take all the precautions which experience suggests, and clearly to indicate in our
Reports that we have taken them.^'
And concerning the Creery experiments, Gumey later wrote :
This condition [when members of the investigating committee alone were
agents] clearly makes it idle to represent the means by which the transferences
took place as simply a trick which the members of the investigating committee
failed to detect. The trick, if trick there was, must have been one in which they,
or one of them, actively shared; the only alternative to collusion on their part
being some piece of carelessness amounting almost to idiocy — such as uttering the
required word aloud, or leaving the selected card exposed on the table.^*
In the Appendix to the First Report, Professor Barrett said :
Only by wide and searching inquiry of this kind can any conception be
formed of the pitfalls which beset the inquirer, arising mainly either from uncon-
scious, involuntary actions, or from the extraordinary capacity there b in human
nature for deception, often seemingly innocent, at other times resorted to for the
sake of gaining notoriety. I confess I do not know how our vigilance would be
increased, or our results become more trustworthy, by ability to diagnose any par-
ticular case, when experience has taught us to exercise habitual caution in all cases.
The inquiry must ultimately resolve itself into a question of evidence, and demands
the exercise of the faculty of careful observation, which a physicist is as likely to
possess as a physiologist.^*
Certain peculiarities in the experimental results did not pass un-
noticed and were seized upon to support the statistical evidence or to
throw light upon the nature of the thought-transference processes.
1* Op cit, p. 38.
»• Op, cit, p. 71.
^^ Phantasms of the Living, vol. I, p. 25.
»» Proceedings S. P, R., 1 : 47-
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466 APPENDIX C
1. The proportion of correct guesses was not materially increase<}
when members of the family were included among the agents ; this was
regarded as evidence that code was not used.
A large number of trials were also made in which the group of agents in-
cluded one or more of the Creery family ; and as bearing on the hypothesis of an
ingenious family trick, it is worth noting that— except where Mr. Creery himself
was included — ^the percentage of successes was, as a rule, not appreciably higher
under these conditions than when the Committee alone were in the secret^*
2. Correct guesses were as frequent when the chances against suc-
cess were incalculable as when they were greatly less.
In many trials, such as the guessing of fictitious names, made up by us on
the spur of the moment, the chances against success were, of course, incalculable;
yet, as will be seen by the following record taken from our last day's experiment-
ing, these names were guessed with as much ease as cards, where the chances
against success were far less.^^
3. Many of the errors were approximate guesses ; some part of the
guess being correct, the guess of ntmiber being numerically close, or suc-
cessive guesses approaching correctness :
One further evidential point should be noted. Supposing such a thing as a
genuine faculty of thought-transference to exist, and to be capable, for example, of
evoking in one mind the idea of a card on which other minds are concentrated, we
might naturally expect that the card-pictures conveyed to the percipient would
present various degrees of distinctness, and that there would be a considerable
number of approximate guesses, as they might be given by a person who was
allowed one fleeting glimpse at a card in an imperfect light. Such a, person might
often fail to name the card correctly, but his failures would be apt to be far more
nearly right than those of another person who was simply guessing without any
sort of guidance. This expectation was abundantly confirmed in our experiments.
Thus, in a series of 32 trials, where only 5 first guesses were completely right, the
suit was 14 times running named correctly on the first trial, and reiterated on the
second. Knave was very frequently guessed as King and vice versa, the suit being
given correctly. The number of pips named was in many cases only one off the
right number, this sort of failure being specially frequent when the number was
over six. Again the answer was often given, as it were, piecemeal — in two par-
ti^ly incorrect guesses — the pips or picture being rightly given at the first attempt,
and the suit at the second ; and in the same way with numbers of two figures, one
of them would appear in the first guess and the other in the second, (pp. 27-8) .^<
4. An unaccountable fluctuation in the capacity was observed:
!• Phantasms of the Living, p. 26.
IT Proceedings S, P. R., i : 24.
i< Phantasms of the Living, vol L
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GROUNDS FOR SCIENTIFIC CAUTION 467
The fluctuations in successes were very remarkable. Thus on one day, Aug-
ust 1st, when the guesser was outside the closed door, twenty-seven trials with
cards gave not a single correct result; merely seven i>artial guesses, as eight of
diamonds for seven of diamonds. Whereas on August 3d, apparently under pre-
cisely similar conditions, the guesser being outside the closed door and no sound
of any kind permitted within the room where we, who knew the card, sat, ten trials
gave two completely right and two almost right; and on August 4th, twenty-Rve
trials under exactly the same conditions gave two completely right and two par-
tially right, (p. 72).
Anxiety to secure success on the part of the subject is nearly always fatal
and always prejudicial, hence the little trepidation that exists when set trials are
made, or trials before strangers, tells most unfavorably, (p. 73).^*
5. A regrettable decline in the capacity prevented a continuation of
the research for the purpose of studying the laws operative in the phe-
nomena.
It may be noted that the power of these (Creery) children, collectively or
separately, gradually diminished during these months, so that at the end of 1882
they could not do, under the easiest conditions, what they could do under the most
stringent in 1881. This gradual decline of power seemed quite independent of the
tests applied, and resembled the disappearance of a transitory pathological condi-
tion, being the very opposite of what might have been expected from a growing
proficiency in code-communication.*®
It may perhaps be asked of us why we did not exploiter this remarkable fam-
ily further. It was certainly our intention to do what we could in this direction,
and by degrees to procure for our friends an opportunity of judging for them-
selves. . . . Had the faculty of whose existence we assured ourselves continued in
full force, it would doubtless have been possible in time to bring the phenomena
under the notice of a sufficient number of painstaking and impartial observers, (p.
29). . . . But the faculty did not continue in full force; on the contrary, the av-
erage of successes gradually declined, and the children regretfully acknowledged
that their capacity and confidence were deserting them. The decline was equally
observed even in the trials which they held amongst themselves ; and it had nothing
whatever to do with any increased stringency in the precautions adopted. No pre-
cautions, indeed, could be stricter than that confinement to our own investigating
group of the knowledge of the idea to be transferred, which was, from the very first,
a condition of the experiments on which we absolutely relied. The fact has just
to be accepted, as an illustration of the. fleeting character which seems to attach
to this and other forms of abnormal sensitiveness. . . . The decline set in with
their sense that the experiments had become matters of weighty importance to us,
and of somewhat prolonged strain and tediousness to them. (p. 30).*^
6. The phenomena of thought-transference were regarded as fairly
common, and there is some evidence that it was curiously contagious :
" Proceedings S. P. R., i : 7^-3-
20 Op. cit, 1 : 171.
21 Phantasms of the Living, vol. I.
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468 APPENDIX C
The Rev. A. M. Crecry, in a "Note on Thought-Reading/' said:
I may say that this faculty is not by any means confined to members of one
family; it is much more general than we imagine. To verify this conclusion I
invited two of a neighbor's children to join us in our experiments. On the first
evening they were rather diffident, and did not succeed; on the second they im-
proved, and on the third evening they were still better. Circumstances prevented
them being able to continue their visits to us, but I saw enough to make me feel
perfectly sure that had they persevered they would have been quite equal to our
own circle in the faculty of thought-reading.**
Never before had such strong and apparently authentic evidence
been presented to the world for the existence of thought-transference.
The research was cooperative; the investigators were eminent men;
responsibility for the proper conduct of experiments was distributed;
the results were decisive in excluding chance. From the publication of
the G>mmittee's First Report criticism began pouring in from the press.
Much of it was worthless ; some of it doubtless assisted the investigators
in improving their methods of experiment ; but none of it shook the faith
of the members of the Committee who had been won over to the tele-
pathic hypothesis by this evidence. Some of these criticisms, which evi-
dently charged the Society with unscientific methods, were answered in
an address by the President of the Society, Professor Sidg^ick : *•
We admit, of course, that the majority of scientific experts still keep aloof
from us, and that the agreement of experts is the final test of the establishment of
truths; — ^indeed we may apply to the scientific world what an eminent statesman
has said of the political world, that the main duty of a minority is to try to turn
itself into a majority. But this is just what we hope to do ; not so much by direct
controversy, as by patiently and persistently endeavoring to apply to the obscure
matters we are studying methods as analogous as circumstances allow to those by
which scientific progress has been made in other departments, (p. 245).
This, then, is what we mean by a scientific spirit: that we approach the sub-
ject without prepossessions, but with a single-minded desire to bring within the
realm of orderly and accepted knowledge what now appears as a chaos of individual
beliefs. In saying that our methods are scientific we do not of course pretend to
possess any technical knowledge or art, needing elaborate training. "Science," as
an eminent naturalist has said, ''is only organized common-sense"; and on ground
so very new as most of that is on which we are trying to advance, the organiza-
tion of common-sense, which we call scientific method, must necessarily be very
rude and tentative. Indeed, the value to us of the scientific experts whom we are
glad to count among our number depends much less on any technical knowledge
or skill than on the general habit of mind— what I may call the "higher common-
sense" — ^which their practice of scientific investigation has given to them ; somewhat
** Proceedings, S. P. /?., i :43-4; cf, also, sul*ra, p. ap.
w Delivered July 18, 1883.
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GROUNDS FOR SCIENTIFIC CAUTION 469
greater readiness and completeness in seeing considerations and adopting measures
which, when once suggested, are not only intelligible, but even obvious, to the
common-sense of mankind at large, (pp. 246-7).
We only refuse to admit them [the explanations of our opponents] where we
find that the h3rpothe8is manifestly will not fit the facts, (p. 248}.
Before coming to our conclusion as to thought-transference we considered
carefully the arguments brought forward for regarding cases of so-called ''thought-
reading" as due to involuntary indications apprehended through the ordinary
senses; and we came to the conclusion that the ordinary experiments, where con-
tact was allowed, could be explained by the hypothesis of unconscious sensibility
to involuntary muscular pressure. Hence we have always attached special import-
ance to experiments in which contact was excluded; with regard to which this par-
ticular hypothesis is clearly out of court, (p. 248).**
The Creery experiments completed, carefully prepared expositions
of the research were published by the Committee in the Nineteenth Cen-
tury Magazine ** and in the "Phantasms of the Living." *• Both publica-
tions called forth serious criticism. In the succeeding number of the
Nineteenth Century Magazine,*"^ appeared "A Note on 'Thought-Read-
ing* " by Horatio Donkin, in which the critic said :
They [the Creery cases] differ in no way from the ordinary platform per-
formances of the little "clairvoyantes" who from time to time have amused us
both in the name of Second Sight, and in that of the humbler and honester one
of conjuring. It is well known that a very simple code of signals will suffice to
produce results much more startling than those we are discussing. . . . When the
dairvoyante is not blindfolded other means of communication of course are pos-
sible, and in any case auditory signs other than words could be' agreed upon quite
unsuspected by the audience to be amused or deceived.
We have, therefore, an intelligible and admitted explanation which fully
serves to cover all the facts in question. Such things are constantly done by col-
lusion— it is a vera causa. It would be illogical to substitute for this a perfectly
gratuitous hypothesis and an unknown agency, (p. 132).
The children were not blindfolded, (p. 132).
In most of the experiments there is no mention made of silence being pre-
served, (p. 133).
The mistake made by the servant in guessing the name " 'Enry" for "Emily"
is obviously significant, and an excellent example of an "undesigned coincidence.''
Surely it must lead almost every plain mind to the irresistible conclusion that a
mistaken whisper or facial gesture played some part in the phenomenon, (p. 133).
The theory of collusion is moreover strongly countenanced by the fact of
the mediums being children, who are always ready to join in any game of decep-
tion; and by the association with them of the servant-girl— a valuable fact, put-
»* Proceedings S, P. /?., 1882-83, i - 245-8.
"June 1882, 11:890-901.
*• 1886, vol. I, pp. 20-31.
"July 1882, 12:131-3.
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470 APPENDIX C
ting out of court the assumption of any inherited special quality peculiar to the
family, as an explanation, possibly plausible to -some minds, of the alleged mar-
vels, (p. 133).
The authors, indeed, say "though generally the object selected was shown to
the members of the family present in the room, we were sometimes entirely alone."
From the only rational point of view, that of scientific scepticism, and therefore
with total disregard of the personal factor, this consideration seems in no way to
invalidate the line of comment here taken. It is not clear to how many of the
three observers the pronoun "we" in the above passage refers; but, at any rate,
we miss entirely in the paper any specific quotation of results obtained in this lat-
ter set of circumstances.
But even if this evidence had been forthcoming, no mere ipse dixit on such
a matter could for one moment be admitted. Reason would require us to enter-
tain the great probability of mental bias in some at least of the observers, or to
discredit the accuracy of their memory, rather than to allow that an3rthing has
been adduced in this account of what, to say the least, must be called superficially
conducted experiments, to warrant a recognition of any novelty, or, by conse-
quence, to stand in need of explanation by a theory of "Brain- waves." *• (p.
133)."
Dr. G. Stanley Hall in his review of "Phantasms of the Living"
pointed out that in spite of the authors' statement to the effect that the
decline in the capacity of the Creery sisters for thought-transference
"had nothing whatever to do with any increased stringency in the pre-
cautions adopted/' the precautions did grow more stringent, and that
there were facts which suggested either conscious or unconscious fraud :
That the precautions did grow more stringent there is abundant evidence.
At first "all silently thought the name of the thing selected," after it had been
written down and showed to the rest of the family. "The presence of the father
seemed decidedly to increase the percentage of successes." At Cambridge, where
the three elder sisters were isolated from their family, and where usually none of
the sisters but the guesscr knew the card selected, the successes were less numer-
ous. Very significant is the series of thirty-two experiments where the sisters
knew, and only the tops of their heads were visible to the guesser, and the suit
was named correctly fourteen times running, with great positiveness and reiteration,
while the card was right but five times. From twenty-seven experiments at Dub-
lin, with the other sister knowing, the committee felt justified in saying that the
presence and assistance of the sisters made no appreciable difference in the result,
while at Cambridg:e only eight trials without and seven with the sisters knowing
are given as the basis of a similar inference. From these random data the careful
reader must infer that the effect of the presence of other members of the family
2«At the close of the Committee's exposition there was a discussion of the
"Brain-Wave" theory, and immediately following it was an article by the editor
which consisted of excerpts from his articles to the Spectator on "Brain- Waves :
A theory." (pp. 900-1).
2» Nineteenth Century Magagine, 1882, 12 : 131-3.
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GROUNDS FOR SCIENTIFIC CAUTION 471
was far from sufficiently studied. Indeed the opposite conclusion from that of the
committee is suggested. The latter expressly ascribed failure under strange con-
ditions to diffidence, and aimed mainly to exclude only conscious, and underesti-
mated unconscious, collusion, which the long previous practice at home must have
made almost inevitable with a set of adolescent girls however honest or healthy.
We should even like a more explicit statement as to how the other sisters were
excluded from knowledge of the object selected, where they were, etc.
The methods of isolating the guesser are perhaps still less satisfactory. At
first (Easter, 1881) the child was sent into the next room, and the name of the
object was written and showed around. In April, 1882, the child was recalled by
one of the experimenters, and movements in the room were excluded after the re-
call. Later a watcher was sent from the room with the child, and on being recalled
the latter was placed with her eyes away from the company. Once at least she
was isolated behind the door, at Dublin "behind an opaque curtain" (although we
have found an hypnotically sensitized subject who could read large letters in sun-
light through five thicknesses of cotton sheeting). In this most vital respect also
there was not only no rigorous control and no systematic method, but only the first
rude and irregular preludes and approaches toward it (p. 130).
Again we cannot forbear asking if every experiment, without exception, in
Mr. Barrett's session of Easter, 1881, to say nothing of Mr. Stewart's sessions, was
recorded; and if the results were all noted on the spot and the conditions and de-
scriptions taken at the time and place. The experience of the Seybert commission
in these respects, especially the latter, as well as the writer's own experience with
the untrustworthiness of memory, even for an hour, where such complex conditions
and interests are involved, is sufficient to justify this query. The report of July,
1882, is not explicit on these matters, and, from a careful scrutiny of it, it appears
at least doubtful. When was the paragraph in quotation marks beginning page 21
written, and when the very general description of conditions on page 20? If Mr.
Barrett himself made or dictated these notes on the spot, how could he, as the only
person present besides the family, possibly so secure himself against all the mani-
fold and subtle sources of fallacy in observation as to be warranted in calling his
tests on this occasion "absolutely unexceptionable and conclusive" as he recklessly
does? Next in importance to the method of experimenting in so hazardous a field
is the way of making the protocol and working up the final form of the report.
Either this or the accuracy of observation, or more probably with but one ob-
server, however good, against so many possibilities of error, both must suffer. If
either of these surmises is correct, it bears against the statement that the girls
gradually lost their power from any cause but increased precautions on the part
of the experimenters, (pp. 130-1).
In the study of hyperaesthesic states we now begin to realize the possibilities
of our sensory organism, and how greatly the limits of just observability vary at
different times and states and in different persons, and how it responds physically
to the remotest and faintest cosmic influences. Hearing, e, g., which is known to
vary exceedingly among people whose auditory sensitiveness passes for normal,
the writer has carefully tested in many persons. Two individuals were selected
for exceptional acuteness in this sense, and the following simple code devised by
the writer, which, though repeatedly tried in critical companies, has never been
detected, and with results that impressed many as genuinely telepathic. Pulsa-
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472 APPENDIX C
tions, felt subjectively by the percipient, and easily counted by the agent, either
by movement of the toe if one leg was crossed on the other, or directly seen in
the aorta, or in vibrations of hairs or neck-ribbons, were the basis. The faintest
respiratory noises through the nose, or even mouth, of the agent, were made to
coincide with and accent certain pulsations of the percipient To make these
modified breathings so distinct as to be clearly heard at a distance by the normal
sensitive, yet so faint as to be inaudible even if listened for by spectators often
nearer than the agent, was the art of the latter. If a number was selected by
some one present the agent caught the rhythm of the percipient's pulse, and could
hold it for some time if blindfolded, or then see it in the toe occasionally, and
gave a very faint sniff coinciding with a pulsation, and from this, as zero, the
percipient counted till the next sniff for the first digit, then till the next sniff for
the second digit, and so cm. For cards, first the suit and then the card, were
counted off. The alphabet went more slowly, but a series of diagrams, from
which the selection by the company was made which had been memorized and
numbered, was the greatest success. When the percipient's ears were stopped^
coughs, jars on the table or floor, etc., helped us out. This trivial code, however,,
essentially depended ultimately for the absolute security it generally possessed on
the fact that the percipient could hear more acutely than any one present, and
when that is the case a telepathy not outside the ordinary channels of sense is
possible. We have no data whatever for believing that the ear can hear and dis-
tinguish muscle or pencil sounds in making different letters, hear whispers through
a couple of doors, etc., but neither have we adequate data for judging how far
these, or even less desperate possibilities in the field of vision, would need to be
stretched to account for some of the Crecry phenomena, (p. 131-2).
We have dwelt with some detail on the Creery phenomena because Mr. Gur-
ncy, Mr. Myers and Professor Barrett, the most active woricers and probably
the best observers in the English Society, spent so much time on them, and be-
cause the former expressly states that "it is to those trials that we owe our own
convictions of the possibility of genuine thought-transference." Hence a bias cer-
tainly existed in all subsequent experiments. The precautions grew more strict,
and probably, as we infer, the record grew fuller and more exact, and what is
called a decline in telepathic power we should interpret from between the lines of
the record as an approach to the heart of the mystery, which ought to encourage
unbiased investigators to press onward to a beckoning goal. The girls grew dis-
couraged and did not succeed with each other, it is said. This is natural, as in-
terest in their performances diminished. But it is strange that this decline should
coincide step by step with closer study of them, and still more so that all the
girls should lose this marvelous power simultaneously I (pp. 133-4) ••**
In the Journal '^ of the Society appears the following note :
It will be remembered that the earliest experiments in Thought-transference
described in the Society's Proceedings were made with some sisters of the name
of Crecry; and that though stress was never laid on any trials where a chance
w American Journal of Psychology, 1888, i : 128 ff.
«i October 1887, 3:164.
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GROUNDS FOR SCIENTIFIC CAUTION 473
of collusion was afforded by one or more of the sisters sharing in the "agency,"
nevertheless some results obtained under such conditions were included in the
records. In a series of experiments recently made at Cambridge, two of the sis-
ters, acting as "agent" and "percipient," were detected in the use of a code of
signals; and a third has confessed to a certain amount of signaling in the earlier
series to which I have referred. This fact throws discredit on the results of all
former trials conducted under similar conditions. How far the proved willingness
to deceive can be held to affect the experiments on which we relied, where collu-
sion was excluded, must of course depend on the degree of stringency of the pre-
cautions taken against trickery of other sorts — as to which every reader will form
his own opinion. A further notice of the facts here briefly stated will be pub-
lished in the Proceedings.
And in the Proceedings^^ appears a two-page article entitled a
"Note Relating to Some of the Published Experiments in Thought-
Transference," from which we quote :
The code was as follows: — When the two sisters were in sight of one an-
other, the signals used were a slight upward look for hearts, downwards for dia-
monds, to the right for spades, and to the left for clubs. Further, the right hand
put up to the face meant king, the left hand to the face meant queen, and knave
was indicated by crossing the arms. It is doubtful whether there were any signs
for other cards. We failed to make any out clearly. A table showing the degree
of success in guessing each card suggests that there were signs for lo and ace,
but that they were either only used occasionally or used with poor success.
In experiments in which a screen was placed between the two sisters, so that
they could not see each other, auditory signs were used to indicate suits. A scrap-
ing with the feet on the carpet meant hearts, and sighing, coughing, sneezing or
yawning meant diamonds. If there were signs to distinguish between the black
suits they were — ^like the signs for lo and ace in the visual code — sparingly used
or often unsuccessful.
The sisters are naturally very restless, which made the movements above
described less obvious than they would otherwise have been. As soon as some
clue to the code used had been obtained, Mr. Gumey and Mrs. Sidgwick, and
sometimes Professor Sidgwick, set themselves to guess the card (which they took
care should be unknown to them) from the signals, secretly recording their
guesses. Their success afforded a complete proof of the use of the signals. . . .
The account which was given as to the earlier experiments conducted under
similar conditions, is that signals were very rarely used; and not on specially
successful occasions, but on occasions of failure, when it was feared that visitors
would be disappointed.
The publication of the note in the Journal called forth a letter from
the Rev. A. M. Creery, in which he said:
Dear Sir, — The announcement which appears in the last Journal that my
daughters were detected using a code of signals in some thought-transference ex-
•* Proceedings S,P.R., 1888-89, 5:269-70.
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474 APPENDIX C
periments at Cambridge, has given me intense pain; and I have no desire to ex-
cuse their misconduct, nor to extenuate their guilt, for which they now grieve
quite as much as I do. But I do not believe that signs, signals, and hints of any
kind were used in the earlier experiments. It would, of course, be impossible to
say that a sign was never used in the thousands of experiments that were made,
not only before scientific and literary men, but in numerous drawing-rooms as an
evening amusement, during the two or three years in which we were interested in
the matter, though I was never aware of it ; but that anything like a code of sig-
nals was ever in use during the early experiments which which I had anything
to do, I do not believe, (p. 175).
. . . And yet, during all that time I never heard they were suspected of using
signals. Had they been in the habit of doing so, we might have expected to find
them improving in their guessing, according as "the code" became more perfect
by practice; but the very reverse was the case. And as I found, after the early
part of 1882, that their faculties of percipience were gradually deteriorating, I
resolved to give up the experiments; and it was contrary to my advice and wish
that they were recommenced after a lapse of five years, knowing the power of
the temptation, which in somewhat kindred matters has proved almost universally
fatal, to simulate by tricks what formerly came spontaneously and naturally.
The last word that I shall say on this matter is this: that if the scientific
investigators, all of whom afterwards became prominent members of the "Society
for Psychical Research," could have been deceived by a few children practising a
"code of signals," their keenness of vision, and their faculty of "continuous ob-
servation," are less than I could have imagined, (p. 176) .**
This blow to the evidence the Committee did not appear to regard
as fatal, since occasional resumes " of evidence for thought-transference
have since appeared from the p^ns of the members of the Conunittee or
of the Society which include the Creery cases. They appear to have re-
garded the internal evidence of precautions against collusion, in the pub-
lished records, as suflScient to indicate that, for example, when the Com-
mittee alone acted as agents, a code would have been useless.
Yet, when one examines the internal evidence, much that was used
to support the telepathic hypothesis is equally good support for undis-
covered signaling — even in the data from which the "agency" of the sis-
ters was supposed to be excluded. Let us examine briefly and seriatim
the list " of peculiarities in the experimental results which observers re-
marked :
I. Since the proportion of correct guesses when the members of
the family were included among the agents was not greater than when
«« Journal S. P. R., November 1887, 3 : 175-6.
•*For example, Sir W. F. Barrett: Psychical Research. London, 191 1, pp.
S3 ff. But the Creery series have been avoided by Podmore, Lodge and Thomas.
»« Supra, pp. 46s ff.
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GROUNDS FOR SCIENTIFIC CAUTION 475
they were excluded, like causes were probably operative. Some signal-
ing, one of the girls confessed, had taken place; can one be sure that
the members of the family were really excluded from "agency" when
the investigators supposed that they were, or that there has been no error
in the records, or procedure? Were the cards new and unmarked?
Were spectacle reflections avoided?
2. Correct guesses were as frequent when the chances against suc-
cess were incalculable as when they were greatly less. That is, whether
guesses were made upon fancy names or upon suits of cards. Take, for
illustration, the name "Alfred Henderson" which Mary Creery guessed
at the first trial ; the chance of getting the first letter right is 1/36 ; of
getting Al right, is 1/36 X 1/36; of getting the whole name, is 1/36"
or .000,000,000,000,000,000,000,004,5 ; while the chance of getting a suit
of cards right is 1/4 or .25. Now on the assumption that a capacity for
thought-transference operated with such force that, in the long run,
about one-third of the mental content is transferred to the percipient, we
would expect in right guesses about 33% on names, and about 50% on
the suit of cards.** On the assumption of a code, we would expect about
100% right when the conditions were favorable for the use of the code,
and none right on names, and but 25% on suit, when the conditions pre-
cluded its use. The absence of gradation in the proportion of correct
guesses in accordance with the theoretical chances, strongly supports the
' hypothesis of code.
3. The approximate guessing constitutes prima facie evidence of
code. The run of fourteen correct guesses on suit occurred at Cam-
bridge, August 2d, 1882, when the two sisters who were included
among the agents were screened from the third sister, who was acting
as percipient, in such a way that the tops of their heads only were visible
to the percipient.*^ The visual code discovered consisted, for suit, in
*• Out of 100 guesses on suit, 25 would be right by chance ; one-third of the
remainder (75) by thought-transference would be 25; making the total of right
guesses 50.
*^A remarkable instance of this partial perception of the thing selected oc-
curred on August 2d. On this occasion all the Committee were present; two of
the sisters of the guesser were also in the room, and knew the card selected ; they
were, however, so placed that (though they were completely in our view) only the
tops of their heads were visible to the guesser, and they remained quite motionless
and silent throughout the experiments. Out of 32 experiments with cards, 5 were
guessed completely right at the first attempt, and in addition 20 were partially
right Fourteen times running the suit was named correctly on the first trial, and
reiterated on the second ; not only was no indication whatever given to show that
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476 APPENDIX C
angular disposition of the head ; for number, in disposition of the hands
or arms. Gxie for suit could be used; code for number could not.
The fact that the number of pips in wrong guesses was most often
wrong by but one digit when the number was over six points unmistak-
ably to the use of signal-code under conditions of difficulty. A mistake
in count, or failure to see or hear the signals distinctly, would result in
such errors. This evidence is supported by the fact that the same sort
of error is to be found in the guesses on two-place numbers (66 for 67,
54 and 56 for 55, 71 for 81, 16 for 18, 26 for 29, 22 for 21, etc.), where
the supposed cause (an indefinite mental imagery of the face of a play-
ing-card) of the errors in guessing pips could not be operative. The
progressive approximation of successive guesses to correctness is also a
characteristic of code-reading.
4. The unaccountable fluctuation in the proportion of correct
guesses is thoroughly consistent with signaling which would work under
certain conditions only. One would expect such fluctuations, under the
varying conditions of the experiments, more readily of code-reading than
of thought-reading.
5. The decline in the capacity is readily interpreted as a result of
the growing disinclination of the pastor's family for perpetrating what
had at length come to appear to them as a serious imposture, but what
had been readily entered into in the beginning in a spirit of innocent
mischief. The seriousness of the enterprise may have been partly im-
pressed upon them by the increased vigilance of the Committee and partly
by learning something of the scientific import of the investigation. In
order to discourage further experimentation they would naturally display
less power in the trials which they held amongst themselves. This inter-
pretation would account for the apparent independence of the decline
and "any increased stringency in precautions adopted" ; it would account
for the curious fact that the power of the children declined "collectively
and separately" ; and it would not involve any curious characteristics of
a "pathological condition" or an "abnormal sensitiveness."
The decline set in with their sense that the experiments had become matters
of weighty importance to us, and of somewhat prolonged strain and tediousness
to them."
the suit was rightly named, but our impassive countenances and the solitary word
"No," failed to displace from the percipient's mind the correct impression of the
suit. The chances against success in naming the suit rightly in any one case arc
of course 3 to i, but the chances against being right fourteen times consecutively
are 4,783,969 to one.— Proceedings S.P.R,, i:74-
«• Phantasms of the Living, vol I, p. 30.
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GROUNDS FOR SCIENTIFIC CAUTION 477
6. The hypothesis of code is remarkably consistent with the other-
wise curious fact that the power to augment correct guesses decisively
beyond chance was contagious. Jane Dean was quite as successful as the
Creery sisters in whose home she lived in the capacity of maid-servant.
And the neighbor's children who were called in to join the family in
their experiments, and who were diffident and unsuccessful on the first
evening, improved so much on the second and still more on the third
that Mr. Creery felt sure that had they been able to continue they would
have equaled the members of his own circle.
And there is one more bit of internal evidence in the published re-
sults that may be mentioned in support of the hypothesis of code.
On one or two occasions it seemed of advantage to obtain vivid simultaneous
realization of the desired word on the part of all sitters; which is most easiljr
effected if some one slowly and gently claps time, and all mentally summon up*
the word with the beats.**
If this device originated with one of the sisters and the clapping^
was performed by one of them, the process of thought-transference
would be entirely consistent with the later confession.
The internal evidence here adduced, together with the fact that those
successful experiments have not been repeated in the thirty-five years
of experimental work on the problem by the Society for Psychical Re^
search and other responsible investigators, will probably be sufficient to
convince the reader that the Committee must somehow be wrong in its
claim that it excluded from an assigned portion of its experiments the
use of code.
The Smith-Blackburn Experiments.
The second important series of experiments carried out by the
Committee were made with Mr. Douglas Blackburn, Editor of the
Brightonian, and Mr. G. A. Smith, a young mesmerist, both of Brighton.
Attention was drawn to these men by a letter published in Light,
from which Professor Barrett presented in the Appendix to the First
Report the following quotation :
The way Mr. Smith conducts his experiments is this: He places himself en
rapport with myself by taking my hands; and a strong concentration of will and
mental vision on my part has enabled him to read my thoughts with an accuracy
that approaches the miraculous. Not only can he, with slight hesitation, read num-
bers, words, and even whole sentences which I alone have seen, but the sympathy^
«• Proceedings 5. P. R., i : 29.
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478 APPENDIX C
between us has been developed to such a degree that he rarely fails to experience
the taste of any liquid or solid I choose to imagine. He has named, described,
or discovered small articles he has never seen when they have been concealed by
me in the most unusual places, and on two occasions he has successfully described
portions of a scene which I either imagined or actually saw.^<*
Douglas Blackburn, Editor of Brightonian.
Mr. Blackburn is represented in the Second Report,** as an asso-
ciate of the Society, and ''a very painstaking and accurate observer."
The second paragraph of the report of the ''Brighton Experiments"
follows :
We entered into correspondence with Mr. Blackburn, who thereupon took
the trouble to send us a paper recording in detail his experiments with Mr. Smith.
These statements appeared to be so carefully made that two of our number, Mr.
Myers and Mr. Gumey (Mr. Barrett being unable to go at the time), arranged
to pay a visit to Brighton personally to investigate the joint experiments of Mr.
Blackburn and Mr. Smith. These gentlemen most obligingly placed themselves
at our service, and a series of trials were made in our own lodgings at Brighton.
The results of these trials give us the most important and valuable insight into the
manner of the mental transfer of a picture which we have yet obtained, (pp. 7^)-
Experiments were begun December 3, 1882:
S. was blindfolded at his own wish to aid in concentration, and during the
experiment sat with his back turned to the experimenters.
B. holds S.'s band, and asks him to name a color, written down by one of
us and shown to B. It is needless to say the strictest silence was preserved dur-
ing each experiment.
[Eight experiments on naming of colors.]
After a rest numbers were then tried in the same way.
Number selected
Answer
Expt. 9
35
34
" 10
48
58
" //
7
7
Several trials of colors and numbers were now made with S. and B. in sep-
arate rooms, which failed. Names were next tried, written down and shown to
B., who then took S.'s hand as before. There was, as usual, no sound nor move-
ment of the lips on the part of any one.
Name chosen
Answer
Expt. 12
Barnard
Harkmd, Barnard
" 14
Johnson
Jobson, Johnson
*« Proceedings S, P. R., 1882-83, i : 63.
*i Ibid., pp. 70-97.
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GROUNDS FOR SCIENTIFIC CAUTION 479
Two names were then tried without any contact, as follows: —
Name chosen Answer
Expt. i6 Hobhouse Hunter
" 77 Black Drake, Blake
Contact between S. and B. was now resumed by our express desire, as the
increased effort of concentration, needed when there was no contact, brought on
neuralgia in B.
Name chosen Answer
Expt. 7^ Queen Anne Queechy, Queen
" 7p Wissenschaft Wissie, Wissenaft
As B. was ignorant of German, he mentally represented the word "Wissen-
schaft" in English fashion, (pp. 79-80).
We next drew a series of diagrams of a simple geometrical, kind, which were
placed behind S., so that B. could see them. S. described them in each case cor-
rectly, except that he generally reversed them, seeing the upper side of the diagram
downward, the right hand side to the left, etc.
Next day (December 4th) we varied this experiment, thus: —
One of us, completely out of sight of S., drew some figure at random, the
figure being of such a character that its shape could not be easily conveyed in
words; this was done in order to meet the assumption that some code — such as
the Morse alphabet — was used by S. and B. The figure drawn by us was then
shown to B. for a few moments, — S. being seated all the time with his back to us
and blindfolded, in a distant part of the same room, and subsequently in an ad-
joining room.
B. looked at the figure drawn ; then held S.'s hand for a while ; then released
it. After being released, S. (who remained blindfolded) drew the impression of
a figure which he had received. It was generally about as like the original as a
child's blindfold drawing of a pig is like a pig; that is to say, it was a scrawl, but
recognizable as intended to represent the original figure. In no case was there the
smallest possibility that S. could have seen the original figure; and in no case did
B. touch S. even in the slightest manner, while the figure was being drawn.
In one case. No. 6 in the series, the copy may be said to be as exact as S.
could have drawn it blindfold if he had previously seen the original. The figures
were not reversed on this day, as they had been on the previous one.
The whole series of figures (nine in number) are given in the accompanying
plates, which are engraved from photographic reproductions, on the wood blocks, of
the original drawings, (pp. 80-2).
In its Third Report** the Committee gives the results of experi-
ments performed in January, 1883, in the rooms of the Society in Lon-
don. Great care was taken to record minutely the conditions of each
experiment.
** Ibid., pp. 161-215.
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480 APPENDIX C
Our modus operandi is as follows: The percipient, Mr. Smith, is seated
blindfolded at a table in our own room; a paper and pencil are within his reach,
and a member of the G)mmittee is seated by his side. Another member of the
Committee leaves the room, and outside the closed door draws some figure at ran-
dom. Mr. Blackburn, who, so far, has remained in the room with Mr. Smith, b
now called out, and the door closed; the drawing is then held before him for a
few seconds, till its impression is stamped upon his mind. Then, closing his eyes,
Mr. Blackburn is led back into the room and placed standing or sitting behind
Mr. Smith, at a distance of some two feet from him. A brief period of intense
mental concentration on Mr. Blackburn's part now follows. Presently, Mr. Smith
takes up the pencil amidst the unbroken and absolute silence of all present, and
attempts to reproduce on paper the impression he has gained. He is allowed to
do as he pleases as regards the bandage round his eyes; sometimes he pulls it
down before he begins to draw, but if the figures be not distinctly present to his
mind, he prefers to let it remain on, and draws fragments of the figure as they are
perceived, (p. 162).
Only eight experiments, in the reproduction of designs, out of a
total of 37 can be put down as unsuccessful. In the first four experi-
ments contact was permitted,
... as a supposed aid to Mr. Smith in visualizing Mr. Blackburn's mental picture.
We, however, could allow no exception to our cardinal axiom on this subject, that
no experiment where contact of any sort is allowed can be decisive; and though
in the present instance the drawings were of such an irregular character that their
description would have been extremely difiicult to convey by imperceptible tracing
or by any subtle code of pressure-signs, yet, assuming Mr. Blackburn and Mr. Smith
to have been in collusion, the hypothesis was at least conceivable. Accordingly, we
requested Mr. Blackburn to dispense altogether with the preliminary contact; and
it must be understood that all the rest of the successful drawings (with the ex-
ception of two, not here reproduced, and of Fig. 13 as explained below) were done
without any contact whatever, in the manner already indicated on p. 162. (p. 163).
We have now to consider whether it was possible that any information of the
character of the designs drawn could have reached Smith through the ordinary ave-
nues of sense. Of the five recognized gateways of knowledge, four — tasting,
smelling, touch, and sight — were excluded by the conditions of the experiment.
There remains the sense of hearing, which was but partially interfered with by the
bandage over the eyes and ears. But the information can certainly not have been
conveyed by speech ; our ears were as near to Mr. Blackburn as Mr. Smith's, and
our eyes would have caught the slightest movement of his lips.
There remains the hypothesis of a code, consisting of audible signals other
than oral speech; and it would, no doubt, be an exaggeration to affirm that the
possibility of such signals was absolutely excluded. We shall endeavor so to vary
the conditions of subsequent experiments as to exclude this hypothesis completely;
at present we will only point out the very great improbabilities which it involves,
quite independently of our reliance on the integrity of Mr. Blackburn and Mr.
Smith, which nothing has occurred to shake in the slightest degree, (p. 164).
It is probably no exaggeration to say that several scores, if not hundreds, of
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GROUNDS FOR SCIENTIFIC CAUTION 481
precise signs would be required to convey an idea as exact as that implied in many
of Mr. Smith's representations. But in our experiments what sort of range existed
for this mode of communication? The material for possible signs appears to be
reduced to shuffling on the carpet, coughing, and modes of breathing. Anything
distinctly unusual in any of these directions must inevitably have been noticed;
and since our attention, during this part of the experiment, was of course con-
centrated on the relation between Mr. Blackburn and Mr. Smith we are at a loss
to conceive how any signaling, sufficient in amount to convey the required ideas,
could have passed undetected. Furthermore, it must be observed that the repro-
ductions were not made in a tentative, hesitating manner as if waiting for signals;
but deliberately and continuously as if copying a drawing that is seen. Moreover,
in almost every instance the proportions of the different parts of the original figure
were reproduced more accurately than were its more easily describable .details.
However, with the view of removing all doubts that might arise as to possible
auditory communications, we on one occasion stopped Mr. Smith's ears with putty,
then tied a bandage round his eyes and ears, then fastened a bolster-case over the
head, and over all threw a blanket which enveloped his entire head and trunk.
No. 22 was now drawn by one of us, and shown outside the room to Mr. Black-
bum, who on his return sat behind Mr. Smith, and in no contact with him what-
ever, and as perfectly still as it is possible for a human being to sit who is not
concentrating his attention on keeping motionless to the exclusion of every other
object. In a few minutes Mr. Smith took up the pencil and gave the successive
reproductions shown below [Fig. 7].
To profit by a code in this case, Mr. Smith would have had to extract the
putty from his ears unobserved by us, (an action the possibility of which the heavy
swarthings rendered just conceivable,) and then, still smothered in bolster-case
and blanket, to detect periodic variations in Mr. Blackburn's breathing impercept-
ible to us; to identify them as proceedings from Mr. Blackburn, and to interpret
them into a description of the figure given below. This hypothesis seems to us an
extreme one, but, as we have already said, we intend to meet it by yet further
varying and narrowing the conditions of future experiments, (p. 165).*'
No. 22.
Original Drawing. Successive Reproductions.
Fig. 7. — Drawings made in a Smith- Blackburn experiment in
Thought-Transference.
*» Proceedings S, P, /?., 1882-83, i : 164-5.
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482 APPENDIX C
Dr. G. Stanley Hall in his review of ''Phantasms of the Living"
offered the following criticisms of this series:
With the record of these seventeen reproductions, without contact, of the
most unconventional diagrams we confess ourselves more deeply impressed than
with any other work of the society, especially the remarkable No. 22, reproduced
with the ears of the percipient stopped with putty, and wraps enveloping the entire
upper part of his body. We can but wish, however, there had been more of these,
and consecutively, and that while they were about it the committee had isolated the
lower part of Mr. Smith's body from all sensation of jars, and carried, rolled or
swung the agent into the room to exclude the possibility of a code by steps which
an American exhibitor has brought to an incredible degree of development, and
also tested the amount of reduction of acuteness of audition in each ear of Mr.
Smith, or at least of themselves, by putty, and taken precautions to make sure that
all light from the floor was excluded from Mr. Smith's eyes. We have practiced
with some success a toe-code, a part of which is by minimal movements of the great
toe within a thin shoe, the latter not moving at all, and a part, for complex figures,
involving slight movement of the toe of the shoe, which we should think would
only.be facilitated by the conditions of No. 22 with overhanging wraps to shield it
from the committee. Moreover, it is just these larger general forms and relations
of parts without finer details that are best transmitted thus, while the latter, as the
committee note, are absent. It seems worse than Mephistophelean — indeed we wish
we were freer from the fear that it is so in very truth — ^to even suggest, in place
of tension toward transcendental entities, slight practiced movements of the big
toe. . . . The first four figures where contact was allowed are certainly much
better reproduced than any other four in the series, and in Fig. 13 an entire change
of the percipient's conception of the model was caused by contact, though unfor-
tunately it is not stated whether Blackburn touched Smith again after he had cor-
rected his conception of the original, and before it was correctly reproduced, or
whether the second reproduction coincided with Blackburn's memory of it. Again
in Fig. 6, contact suggested a remote reproduction. Suggestive, too, is the circum-
stance that after contact was excluded Mr. Blackburn explains so many deviations
in the copy into greater conformity with the originals by mistakes in his own con-
ception, which he had done in no previous case in this or the earlier series. A
cross in one would grow too large in his mind's eye against his will; he had ''not
precisely remembered" another; forgot the eyes in another; focused on one part
only in another, and imagined curves in the opposite direction in another. The
tests to account for the mental inversion of objects, which strikes us as just the
thing, were only forty-two in number, the result being that eighty-seven per cent
of the answers gave the direction in which a vertical and only thirty-seven per
cent gave that in which a horizontal arrow pointed. May we add that we have
found the same advantage of perpendiculars in the toe-code, on account of the
relative difficulty of lateral movement? This is doubtless entirely irrelevant, for it
is expressly stated that Smith sees in his mental shrine the image of a white arrow
on a dark ground and instantly detected the change when a white arrow on a red
ground was substituted for an ink-drawn one. This aside, however, we deem the
evidence considerable that after contact was given up either a new and less prac-
ticed or more difficult code (conscious or unconscious) was used, or else that the
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GROUNDS FOR SCIENTIFIC CAUTION 483
unknown telepathic forces were obliged to find and deepen other lines of least re-
sistance.**
A number of years later, Professor Minot made the following com-
ments on this series:
A few of the drawings were of a more complicated character, notably those
in the trials conducted with Messrs. Smith and Blackburn under the auspices of
the English Society for Psychical Research. In this special case it is possible to
explain the apparent thought-transference by the hypothesis of intentional collusion
between the performers, at least in great part. That the diagrams can be repro-
duced from descriptions, I have ascertained by trial, and that in many of the
Smith-Blackburn experiments there was opportunity for signaling cannot be denied ;
therefore it is quite possible that in this instance the percipient was told by his con-
federate what to draw. That mere watching is not enough to guard against pos-
sible deception by expert collusionists is well known, (p. 225).
The most impressive tests of which we have accounts are those the value of
which depends upon the attentive watchfulness of the investigators. Now, we
have not only the proof from Mr. Davey ** that attention is not a really sufficient
guard, and that the essential incidents are unnoticed, but also the proof from the
collapse of the Creery case, that the English observers have been inattentive and
unobservant in precisely the manner Mr. Dave/s slate-writing tests render prob-
able. In relying to the extent they have done upon watching with sustained atten-
tion, the English experimenters have again failed to come up to a scientific stand-
ard, and they leave fraud an open explanation for many of their results, (p. 226).
After a thorough examination of the evidence adduced, I am brought to the
conclusion that thought-transference, even as a hypothetical explanation, is a super-
fluous conception, (p. 227) .*•
In a reply to Professor Minot, Mr. Frank Podmore pointed out that
the Committee showed its astuteness in detecting the signaling of the
Creery sisters in the later experiments, and that signaling would be use-
less to the sisters, when the investigators alone knew the object guessed.
He continued:
It is to be regretted that Mr. Minot's study of the subject ceased apparently
five or six years ago, and that he almost wholly ignores the great mass of evidence
accumulated since 1888. (p. 333).
His [Minot's] energies have been so unhappily diverted to the demonstration
of faults which do not exist that he has never touched at all upon the weakest
spot in our experimental evidence. For whilst no fully informed critic wouU
assert that the experiments on which we rely as establishing thought-transference
arc due to either chance or fraud, such an one could plausibly maintain that at
** American Journal of Psychology, 1888, i : 135-6.
*» Vide, Proceedings S. P. R., 4 : 405-495 ; 8 : 256-9.
*♦ Minot: The psychical comedy. North American Review, February 1895,
160:217-330.
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484 APPENDIX C
least a great part of them may be explained as the result of information uncoo>
sciotisly conve3red by normal channels from agent to percipient, and no candid in-
vestigator would meet such a criticism with a direct negative. This indeed is the
crux of the whole inquiry, (p. 336).*^
In 191 1, there appeared in the London Daily News of September
1st over the signature of Douglas Blackburn a communication from
which the following excerpts are made :
For nearly thirty years the telepathic experiments conducted by Mr. G. A.
Smith and myself have been accepted and cited as the basic evidences of the truth
of Thought Transference.
Your correspondent ''Inquirer" is one of many who have pointed to them
as a conclusive reply to modem sceptics. The weight attached to those experi-
ments was given by their publication in the first volume of the Proceedings of the
Society for Psychical Research, vouched for by Messrs. F. W. H. Myers, Edmund
Gumey, Frank Podmore, and later and inferentially by Professor Henry Sidg-
wick. Professor Romanes, and others of equal intellectual eminence. They were
the first scientifically conducted and attested experiments in Thought Transference,
and later were imitated and reproduced by "sensitives" all the world over.
I am the sole survivor of that group of experimentalists, and as no harm can
be done to anyone, but possible good to the cause of truth, I, with mingled feelings
of regret and satisfaction, now declare that the whole of those alleged experiments
were bogies, and originated in the honest desire of two youths to show how easily
men of scientific mind and training could be deceived when seeking for evidence
in support of a theory they were wishful to establish.
And here let me say that I make this avowal in no boastful spirit Within
three months of our acquaintance with the leading members of the Society for
Psychical Research, Mr. Smith and myself heartily regretted that these personally
charming and scientifically distinguished men should have been victimized; but it
was too late to recant. We did the next best thing. We stood aside and watched
with amazement the astounding spread of the fire we had in a spirit of mischief
lighted.
The genesis of the matter was in this wise. In the late seventies and early
eighties a wave of so-called occultism passed over England. Public interest be-
came absorbed in the varied alleged phenomena of Spiritualism, Mesmerism, and
thought-reading; "professors" of the various branches abounded, and Brighton,
where I was editing a weekly journal, became a happy hunting ground for medi-
ums of every kind. I had started an exposure campaign, and had been rather suc-
cessful. My great score was being the first to detect the secret of Irving Bishop's
thought-reading. In 1882 I encountered Mr. G. A. Smith, a youth of 19, whom I
found giving a mesmeric entertainment. Scenting a fraud, I proceeded to investi-
gate, made his acquaintance, and very soon realized that I had discovered a genius
in his line. He has since been well known as a powerful hypnotist He was also
the most ingenious conjurer I have met outside the profession. He had the
*T Podmore : What psychical research has accomplished. North American
Review, March 1895, 160:330-344.
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GROUNDS FOR SCIENTIFIC CAUTION 485
versatility of an Edison in devising new tricks and improving on old ones. We
entered into a compact to "show up" some of the then flourishing professors of
occultism, and began by practicing thought-reading. Within a month we were
astonishing Brighton at bazaars and kindred charity entertainments, and enjoyed
a great vogue. One of our exhibitions was described very fully and enthusiastic-
ally in Light, the spiritualistic paper, and on the strength of that the Messrs.
Myers, Gumey, and Podmore called on us and asked for a private demonstration.
As we had made a strict rule never to take payment for our exhibitions, we were
accepted by the Society as private unpaid demonstators, and as such remained
during the long series of stances.
It is but right to explain that at this period neither of us knew or realized
the scientific standing and earnest motive of the gentlemen who had approached
us. We saw in them only a superior type of the spiritualistic cranks by whom we
were daily pestered. Our first private s^nce was accepted so unhesitatingly, and
the lack of reasonable precautions on the part of the "investigators" was so marked,
that Smith and I were genuinely amused, and felt it our duty to show how utterly
incompetent were these "scientific investigators." Our plan was to bamboozle them
thoroughly, then let the world know the value of scientific research. It was the
vanity of the schoolboy who catches a master tripping.
A description of the codes and methods of communication invented and em-
ployed by us to establish telepathic rapport would need more space than could be
spared. Suffice it that, thanks to the ingenuity of Smith, they became marvelously
complete. They grew with the demands upon them.
Starting with a crude set of signals produced by the jingling of pince-nez,
sleeve-link, long and short breathing, and even blowing, they developed to a de-
gree little short of marvelous. To this day no conjurer has succeeded in ap-
proaching our great feat, by which Smith, scientifically blindfolded, deafened, and
muffled in two blankets, reproduced in detail an irregular figure drawn by Mr.
Myers, and seen only by him and me.
The value of a contribution such as this should lie not so much in describing
the machinery as in pointing out how and where these investigators failed, so that
future investigators may avoid their mistakes.
I say boldly that Messrs. Myers and Gumey were too anxious to get cor-
roboration of their theories to hold the balance impartially. Again and again they
gave the benefit of the doubt to experiments that were failures. They allowed us
to impose our own conditions, accepted without demur our explanations of failure,
and, in short, exhibited a complaisance and confidence which, however compli-
mentary to us, was scarcely consonant with a strict investigation on behalf of the
public
That this same slackness characterized their investigations with other sensi-
tives I am satisfied, for I witnessed many, and the published reports confirmed the
suspicion. It is also worthy of note that other sensitives broke down or showed
weakness on exactly the same points that Smith and I failed — ^namely, in visual-
izing an article difficult to describe in words signaled by a code. A regular figure
or familiar object was nearly always seen by the percipient, but when a splotch of
ink, or a grotesque irregular figure, had to be transferred from one brain to the
other, the result was always failure. We, owing to a very ingenious diagram code,
got nearer than anybody, but our limitations were great.
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486 APPENDIX C
Smith and I, by constant practice, became so sympathetic that we frequently
brought off startling hits, which were nothing but flukes. The part that fortuitous
accident plays in this business can only be believed by those who have become
expert in the art of watching for and seizing an opportimity. When these hits
were made, the delight of the investigators caused them to throw off their caution
and accept practically anything we offered, (pp. iiS-?)*
The reports of those trained and conscientious observers, Messrs. Myers and
Gumey, contain many absolute inaccuracies. For example, in describing one of
my "experiments," they say emphatically, "In no case did B. touch S., even in the
slightest manner." I touched him eight times, that being" the only way in which
our code was then worked, (pp. 118-9).**
In the Daily News of September 4, 191 1, appeared an interview
with Mr. G. A. Smith from which the following quotations are taken :
"Let me say at once," he began, "that Mr. Blackburn's story is a tissue of
errors from beginning to end. In the first place I most emphatically deny that I
ever in any degree, in any way, when working thirty years ago with Mr. Blade-
burn, attempted to bamboozle Messrs. Myers, Gumey, and Podmore. Had such a
thing been possible I had too much admiration and respect for them and too much
respect for myself to try. These gentlemen, long before they met us, had spent
years in investigating psychic phenomena, and were aware of every device and
dodge for making sham phenomena. They were on the watch not only for pre-
meditated trickery, but for unconscious trickery as well. You could not deceive
them, and the quack mediums hated them in consequence." (pp. 120-1).
"He says we formed a compact to 'show up' the professors. We did no such
thing. Blackburn at that time was a serious investigator, and assuredly I was. . . .
"He says I was the most ingenious conjurer he ever met outside the pro-
fession, whereas I am the worst conjurer in the world. ... He says we had a
code of signals. We had not a single one; we never contemplated the possibility
of coding until we learnt it from Mr. Myers and Mr. (jumey themselves. He says
we practiced together and brought off startling hits. We never did anything of
the kind. He did once say what a journalistic sensation might be made by pre-
tending the phenomena were done by trickery. . . ." (p.121).
"Do you recall, Mr. Smith, what Mr. Blackburn calls 'our great feat,* by
which you, scientifically blindfolded, deafened, and muffled in two blankets, repro-
duced in detail an irregular figure drawn by Mr. Myers and seen only by him and
Mr. Blackburn r
"Yes, I recall it perfectly, and the discussion which followed, when Mr.
(jumey said the only possible way of doing it by trickery was to conceal the draw-
ing in a pencil case and pass it into my hand. I was amused to read two years
ago in a weekly paper containing some statements by Mr. Blackburn that he gave
this very explanation of how the 'trick* was done !"
"It was no trick then, Mr. Smith?"
"No, it was a bona fide experiment, and the successful result was either due
to chance or telepathy. . . ."
^•Journal S,P.R., 1911-12, 15: "5-9-
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GROUNDS FOR SCIENTIFIC CAUTION 487
Mr.* Smith, when questioned as to the accuracy of Mr. Blackburn's statement
that he had touched him (Mr. Smith) eight times, "that being the only way our
code was then worked/' denied that Mr. Blackburn had ever touched him.
". . . We had no code," he said. 'The whole object of the experiment was
to obtain thought-transference, and all touchings were out of the question. When-
ever there was any touching or contact of any description it is always minutely
recorded by the observers — see the records of the Psychical Research Society.
"Further — and this is most important — ^none of the experiments in which Black-
bum was concerned have been put forward by the Psychical Research Society in
any authoritative work." (p. 122). *•
Mr. Blackburn replied on the following day:
The fact that Mr. G. A. Smith is alive supplies another argument in support
of my pet theory, that most human evidence is unreliable. I was informed of his
death when I was in Africa, and since my return two persons who claimed to
know him corroborated independently, while a letter I addressed to him was re-
turned "not known." Had I been aware of his existence I should not have opened
up the subject, for I am aware that Mr. Smith, as he confirms in to-day's inter-
view, spent many of the years that have elapsed since our acquaintance in dose
association with leading members of the Society for Psychical Research in a fidu-
ciary capacity. I am also aware that that position was the legitimate reward for
his services in connection with our telepathic "experiments" and his undoubted
power as a remarkable hypnotist.
While pleased to learn that the bright, amusing, and ingenious confrere of
thirty years ago is in the prime of life, I am sorry that I should have unintention-
ally forced him into having to defend a position he has occupied so long. I have
been reproached for postponing my confession until after the death of the prin-
cipals. I am satisfied that in doing this I showed my regard for those gentlemen —
Mr. Smith included — ^and my desire to avoid giving them pain. That Mr. Smith
should have to bear the brunt of the attack is unfortunate, but quite accidental on
my part
But now to business. Mr. Smith gives a categorical denial to my story; de-
clares that he was a genuine sensitive, and I also the possessor of psychic power.
He could do no less, and I cannot blame him. He was a plucky controversialist
in those younger days, and I am prepared to see him put up a tough fight now.
In most controversies there is a tendency to obscure the main issue by the
introduction of minor details. Let us clear the decks of unnecessary lumber, such
as the question whether I first approached the S. P. R., or they me. It is sufficient
that we met. It is also agreed that Smith and I conducted many alleged telepathic
experiments. It is a fact that those experiments were considered of sufficient im-
portance then to be given first place in the official report. Mr. Smith also knows
that they excited great interest, and that he and I were made much of by many
men of scientific eminence. To attempt to belittle the importance of those experi-
ments now is childish. No doubt greater things have been brought off since, but
we were the pioneers, and I am satisfied that we unintentionally gave scores of
subsequent experimenters the cue how to become "telepathic sensitives."
*• Ibid,, pp. 120-2.
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488 APPENDIX C
Mr. Smith denies that we employed a code. My reply is that without one it
would have been impossible for me to convey to him the figures drawn by the
members of the committee for transference from my brain to that of the blind-
folded, blanket-muffled, sensitive Smith. Let us dismiss all the other successful
experiments — any one of which I will undertake to repeat to-day under identical
conditions, with the aid of any intelligent confederate — and confine ourselves to "our
great feat," which Mr. Smith tells your interviewer he recalls perfectly. That
feat, if genuine, would establish telepathy beyond cavil. All others sink into in-
significance in comparison. It was a master stroke, and so great was the im-
pression produced by it, both upon the "best trained and best qualified observers in
London" and ourselves, that we decided to retire upon our laurels, feeling certain
we could never hope to repeat or equal it. It was the best and last thing I did.
As Mr. Smith repudiates participation in the invention, I will take full credit or
otherwise for it. I ask that readers will note very carefully every detail in the
ensuing description of the trick, for it is they who will have to give the verdict.
The committee had realized the possibility of conveying by signals a descrip-
tion of a regular figure or any object capable of being described in words, and I
would direct the attention of those who have access to the printed copies of the
early figures Smith and I produced. It will be noticed that so long as the figures
were describable in words they were fairly accurate reproductions; but the more
irregular and indescribable they became the greater and wider the discrepancies
between the original seen by me and the copy produced by Smith. Now I put it
as a fair question: If Smith could see what I saw, as he professed, why is it that
he could see plainly an equilateral triangle, but fail to see it if one of the sides or
angles was "wobbly" and out of shape? Again, if he could reproduce with rea-
sonable accuracy the silhouette of a man's head, easily described by a code, why did
he fail when that same head was touched up with black ink protuberances, with
the nose under the chin, a big ear on the back of the head, and so on? The reason
was simple. Our code was confined to regular, or fairly regular, figures. It would
have taken hours to spell out a full description of that figure by the sounds, move-
ments, intervals of time, bogus mesmeric passes that stirred his hair, and the num-
erous, almost imperceptible, signals that formed perhaps the most complex and ef-
fective code ever used by conjurers. I doubt whether any person could write at
leisure a description of such an object so accurately as to enable another one to
reproduce the figure from that description.
This reasonable point of view occurred to the committee, and they abandoned
regular figures for complex indescribables. Need I say that we failed again and
again? In fact, we ceased any attempt to "transfer" them. I had a signal, which
I gave Smith when the drawing was impossible. We made a pretense of trying
hard, but, after a time, would give up on the stock explanation of "absence of
rapport." Mr. Smith is angry with me for holding in light esteem the capacity
of Messrs. Myers and Gumey for taking precautions against deception. I confess
that their irregular drawings completely snuffed out the psychic power which, ac-
cording to Mr. Smith, I possessed without knowing it. As a matter of fact, the
committee were beginning to have grave doubts when the "great feat" I shall now
describe saved our reputations and enabled me at least to carry out my bat
These were the conditions: Smith sat in a chair at a large table. His eyes
were padded with wool, and, I think, a pair of folded kid gloves, and bandaged
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GROUNDS FOR SCIENTIFIC CAUTION 489
with a thick dark ck)th. His ears were filled with one layer of cotton-wool, then
pellets of putty. His entire body and the chair on which he sat were enveloped
in two very heavy blankets. I remember, when he emerged triumphant, he was
wet with perspiration, and the paper on which he had successfully drawn the figure
was so moist that it broke during the examination by the delighted observers.
Beneath his feet and surrounding his chair were thick, soft rugs, rightly intended
to deaden and prevent signals by feet-shufHes — a wise precaution, for in our early
experiments my feet did marvelous things. Smith being rendered contact proof
and perfectly insulated, my part began.
At the farther side of the room — a very large dining-room — Mr. Myers showed
me, with every precaution, the drawing that I was to transmit to the brain beneath
the blankets. It was a triangle of heavy black lines, interlaced, some curved, some
straight, the sort of thing an infant playing with a ptn or pencil might produce,
and I am certain absolutely indescribable in words, let alone a code. I took it,
fixed my gaze on it, pacing the room meanwhile and going through the usual pro-
cess of impressing the figure upon my retina and brain, but always keeping out of
touching distance with Smith. These preliminaries occupied perhaps ten or more
minutes, for we made a point of never hurrying. I drew and redrew the figure
many times openly in the presence of the observers, in order, as I explained and
they allowed, to fix it on my brain. I also drew it, secretly, on a cigarette paper.
By this time I was fairly expert at palming, and had no difficulty, while pacing the
room collecting "rapport," in transferring the cigarette paper to the tube of the
brass protector on the pencil I was using. I conveyed to Smith the agreed sig-
nal that I was ready by stumbling against the edge of the thick rug near his chair.
Next instant he exclaimed : "I have it," his right hand came from beneath the
blanket, and he fumbled about the table, saying, according to arrangement:
"Where's my pencil?"
Inunediately I placed mine on the table. He took it and a long and anxiotis
pause ensued.
This is what was going on under the blanket. Smith had concealed up his
waistcoat one of those luminous painted slates which in the dense darkness gave
sufficient light to show the figure when the almost transparent cigarette paper
was laid flat on the slate. He pushed up the bandage from one eye, and copied
the figure with extraordinary accuracy. It occupied over five minutes. During
the time I was sitting exhausted with the mental effort quite ten feet away.
Presently Smith threw back the blanket and excitedly pushing back the eye
bandage produced the drawing, which was done on a piece of notepaper, and very
nearly on the same scale as the original. It was a splendid copy. (pp. 123-6) .••
In a second interview published in the Daily News on September
6th Mr. Smith said:
It is the most amazing piece of invention ever brought to my notice. . . . All
the essential points of Mr. Blackburn's article are untrue, and I deny the whole
story from beginning to end. (p. 127) .•*
w Ibid,
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490 APPENDIX C
Members of the Society came forward with expressions of confi-
dence in Mr. Smith:
Professor Barrett said:
Now I was present at that experiment, and you may «ay that not only I,
but Myers and Gumey, had the most absolute confidence in Mr. Smith, (p. lap).**
Mrs. Henry Sidgwick said : •
... All communication of the leading workers in psychical research with Mr.
Blackburn ceased not long after the experiments in question, and, ... cm the other
hand, the connection of Mr. G. A. Smith with the work of the society was long
and intimate, (p. 130)."
Mr. Blackburn's statement is confirmed to a certain extent by an article in
the Westminster Gazette for January 29th, igo8. There Sir James Crichton-
Browne describes how he and Dr. Francis Galton on one occasion were present,
as outsiders invited by Professor Romanes on behalf of some members of the
S. P. R., at the Dean's Yard experiments with Smith and Blackburn. He tells us
that Smith, the percipient, was blindfolded and succeeded in reproducing a few
regular or simple figures, such as an owl, the diagram on which Blackburn had
concentrated his mind in one of the experiments. But Smith completely failed in
reproducing an irregular figure which Professor Romanes and Sir James Crichton-
Browne subsequently insisted on as a test when they began to suspect the use of a
code. The next diagram was the shield on Dr. Galton's signet ring. This had an
oval shape, but the reproduction was of a triangular shield. Sir James Crichton-
Browne continues: "By this time I was quite satisfied that Mr. S. was not effec-
tually blindfolded, and that it was practicable for Mr. B. to communicate with him
both by sight and hearing ; so Romanes and I asked permission, which was granted,
to blindfold him anew. We proceeded to do so secundum artem. Cotton-wool
was procured, the sockets were packed, the ears were plugged, and a large hand-
kerchief made all secure. After that several experiments were tried as before,
but there never was the smallest response on the part of Mr. S. to Mr. B.'s voli-
tional endeavors. There was no more Hashing of images into his mind. His pen-
cil was idle. Thought-transference was somehow interrupted." And he concluded
the account as follows: "I was invited to be critical and sceptical, and I was so.
I daresay more credulously inclined people will think that my suspicions were un-
just and that no trick was practised— that was clearly the feeling of some of the
psychical researchers present. The last scene of all, or passage-at-arms, I vividly
recollect. Mr. Myers, standing in front of the fireplace, said, 'It must be allowed
that this demonstration has been a total failure, and I attribute that to the offen-
sive incredulity of Dr. Crichton-Browne.' To which I rejoined T hope I always
will show offensive incredulity when I find myself in the presence of patent im-
" Ibid.
»*Tuckett: Psychical researchers and "the will to believe." Bedrock,
1 : 197-8.
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GROUNDS FOR SCIENTIFIC CAUTION 491
In the Blackburn-Smith controversy misstatements were made on
both sides ; but the most serious of these were made by Smith and his
colleagues in attempting to show that the experiments concerned had
not been regarded by the Society as important, whilst the reader in ac-
cess to the Proceedings (1882-3) may see for himself that they were
portrayed by the Society in its most authoritative publication as evidence
of the first rank. This misrepresentation certainly discredits the So-
ciety's case. It is indeed clear that at some time between the publication
of the Committee's Third Report (April 24, 1883), and the publication
of the "Phantasms of the Living" (June 1886), the Society determined
to suppress the re-publication of this series of experiments: they were
not re-published in the "Phantasms of the Living"; they are not in-
cluded in Podmore's or Thomas' resumes; even Barrett omits them in
his book on "Psychical Research" which appeared in 1911.*'
Why?
Since Smith was a percipient in these experiments in which the re-
produced diagrams show unmistakably and decisively in every published
case a relation to the originals which cannot be attributed to chance,
does not the Society in suppressing the experiments impeach Smith as a
reliable f)arty to a thought-transference experiment? This situation is
particularly unfortunate, for the reason that in all of the later principal
series of officially conducted experiments in thought-transference which
the Society regards as the most successful the h)rpnotist and agent was
Mr. Smith.
But apart from the controversy and the inexplicable position of the
Society, what can the inquiring reader make out of this series of experi-
ments? Are the undoubted similarities between reproductions and orig-
inals to be regarded as evidence of thought-transference or of code?
I. The similarities between reproductions and originals in both the
geometric and the fantastic figures, are evident in gross outline of the
whole drawing or of its separate parts the relations of which are not
preserved, and are just such similarities as one should expect from the
use of movement or verbal code (a flagrant and decisive instance is No.
7, Proceedings, i : 185). The detail which would be transferred with a
visual image is absolutely lacking; it was the idea, ngt the design, that
*'It was probably an oversight that the Society permitted these experiments
to be mentioned and some of the drawings to be reproduced in "The Society for
Psychical Research, its rise and progress and a sketch of its work," which was
published in 1903 by Edward T. Bennett, for twenty years Assistant Secretary of
the Society.
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492 APPENDIX C
was communicated. This deviation in similarity is far beyond what may
be attributed to Mr. Blackburn's fading or changing imagery of the
figure.
2. In the guessing of colors and of names, the increased 24>proxi-
mation in successive trials is a characteristic of code reading when the
code is working under difficult conditions.
3. The errors in guessing numbers are precisely code errors: for
3S» 345 for 48, 58 (Experiments 9 and lo).** It is this type of error
that occurred so frequently in the guesses of the Creery sisters*^ and
also in the responses of "Clever Hans," the "educated" horse of Herr
Von Osten."
Internal evidence points decisively to the use of code in this series
of experiments. This hypothesis is congruent with the external evi-
dence :
( 1 ) Smith had been engaged with Blackburn in giving exhibitions
of thought-reading in Brighton prior to these experiments, and no public
exhibitions of thought-reading, thought-transference, or telepathy of any
sort, are ever given without the use of code. He was accustomed there-
fore to reading code signaled by Blackburn. The probability that he dis-
continued the use of code with the entrance of Gumey and Myer-s among
the spectators, is not very crushing.
(2) The sudden permanent interruption of the investigation was not
expected by the Committee, since further experiments were in view,**
and was not welcomed by them for the reason that they hoped to get so
much further decisive evidence as would be necessary to break down the
skeptic's hypothesis of code as completely as their own doubts had been
removed by the reproductions in Fig. 22. This unexpected interruption,
just at a most interesting point in the investigation, would be entirely
consistent with the motives •• of two young adventurers who had in a
spirit of mischief carried their enterprise to a point where they were
both conscience-stricken with the gravity of their perfidy, or fearful of
serious disaster through exposure.
(3) The later repudiation of the investigation by the Society im-
plicates Smith in code-reading.
»• Supra, p. 478.
" Supra, pp. 466, 475-6.
wpfungst: Clever Hans. New York, 191 1, p. 144.
w Vide, Proceedings S. P. /?., i : 165.
••Suggested in the fourth paragraph of Mr. Blackburn's first letter, supra^
p. 484.
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GROUNDS FOR SCIENTIFIC CAUTION 493
If this is the status of the best of the officially conducted experi-
ments with normal percipients, what must be thought of all the rest of
the Society's evidence for thought-transference? Simply because Smith
and the Creery sisters were the only parties to the experiments who
have been known to use code is no guarantee that other experimenters
not originally under the control of the Committee were free from either
code or other deceptive devices. The third series of experiments upon
which the Society placed reliance for proof of thought-transference to a
normal percipient was conducted by Messrs. Malcolm Guthrie and James
Birchall, in Liverpool. Both investigators were inexperienced in this
sort of investigation. The young ladies, who were employed in Mr. Guth-
rie's drapery establishment, and with whom the experiments were made,
began their practice of thought-reading in imitation of Irving Bishop,
and although the reports of this series of experiments occupy consider-
able space in the Society's Proceedings,*^ the published results give in-
ternal evidence of code.'* Concerning this series, Moll writes :
There was a time when some of the telepathic experiments carried out in
England — more especially those made by Guthrie and Birchall — appeared to me,
relatively speaking, free from error. Nevertheless, when I take into consideration
the way in which the reports are drawn up, I am compelled to admit that those
experiments are not convincing.**
G. Stanley Hall wrote :
There is little indication that Mr. Guthrie is aware of the number and subtilty
of the sources of error in such experiments as he conducts.**
The best evidence the Society has for thought-transference to an
hypnotized percipient lies in the results of two series of experiments**
in which Mr. G. A. Smith was both hypnotist and agent.
Podmore was probably right in his statement quoted above,** to the
effect that the crux of the Society's proof of thought-transference lies
in the possibility that information was "unconsciously conveyed by nor-
mal channels irom agent to percipient," in that this vera causa may rea-
sonably be conceived to have operated in all cases where collusion is not
"1882-83, 1:263-283; 1883-84, 2:24-42, 18^200; 1885, 3:424-452.
•* The ' peculiar code-error of missing a number or letter just one or two
places is found in almost every error on numbers or letters.
•»Moll: Hypnotism. 4th ed., p. 552.
•* American Journal of Psychology, 1 : 137.
•» Proceedings 5". P. R,, 1889-90, 6 : 128-170 ; 1892, 8 : 536-596.
•• Supra, pp. 483-4.
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494 APPENDIX C
a sufficient explanation. Unconscious indications of this sort would have
put the Creery sisters who were sometimes excluded from "agency" into
a position to make effective use of their code.
That the Society has not been alive to the difficulties of investigation
in this field is evident in its publications from the beginning to the pres-
ent time. Circular No. i, published in December, 1883, under (i)
Thought-transference, says :
What is needed, then, is a large number of experiments similar to those
already published, but conducted by different groups of persons and under different
conditions. We have reason to believe that the percipient faculty, so far from
being abnormal or infrequent is pretty generally diffused; and if this fact is grad-
ually made good among persons of recognized position and intelligence, attempts
to explain the results by trickery and collusion will become increasingly ridiculous.
Only thus, moreover, can we obtain sufficient material upon which to base general-
izations.*'
Similar appeals have been made for general and incompetent assistance
to within recent years.**
The general reader can get a fair idea of the difficulty of such in-
vestigation from two fairly popular and readable accounts of what may
be regarded as elementary investigations, the first being much more rig-
orous than the second in procedure and extent of work: (i) The report
of a German psychologist, Dr. Pfungst, on the processes employed by the
celebrated horse "Clever Hans," in his apparently intelligent responses
to questions ;•• and (2) the report of Professor Miinsterberg on his in-
vestigation of the little telepathist, Beulah Miller, of Rhode Island^*
Both of these investigations were stopped short with preliminary yet sig-
nificant findings. Serious investigation of thought-transference would,
of course, be pressed to a conclusion with respect to a complete descrip-
tion and classification of the various laws found to govern the phenom-
ena. Certainly no drawing-room experiments can conunand the respect
of scientists.
Largely because of the Society's failure to realize the difficulty of
thought-transference investigation, and of its fatal overestimation of the
capacity of astute observers to cope with collusionists (always, of course,
«» Proceedings S, P. R., 1893, i : ^97.
^^ Journal S.P.R,, October 191 1, 15:131-2.
•• Oskar Pfungst : Qever Hans, A Contribution to Experimental Animal and
Human Psychology. Tr. by Rahn. New York: Holt, 191 1.
^<> Miinsterberg : Psychology and Social Sanity. New York: Doubleday,
1914. pp. 141-177.
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GROUNDS FOR SCIENTIFIC CAUTION 495
in a limited series of trials of which the collusionists retain complete
control), its policy in amassing evidence has embraced a serious fallacy
—the "fagot theory":
It is not necessary . . . that any individual's honesty shall be completely as-
sumed, in the sense of being used as a certain basis for conclusions. The proof
must depend on the number of persons, reputed honest and intelligent, to whom
dishonesty or imbecility must be attributed if the conclusions are wrong, *. e., it
must be a cumulative proof . . . enough sticks must be collected and tied to-
gether to make a fagot of a strength which shall defy suspicionJ^
The keenest scientific observer may fail utteriy to detect a skillfully
worked code, without meriting the charge of either imbecility or care-
lessness, and he may be an unconscious party to sensory communication^
without being dishonest." Untrustworthiness, in this sense, may be ex-
tended indefinitely^* without conferring upon observers any moral
obloquy. It is only after they have had the opportunity to learn from
professional criticism their disabilities, owing to their lack of "technical
knowledge and skill" '* in this field, that they are really responsible for
the unsoundness of their conclusions. An aggregate of scientifically un-
trustworthy experimental evidence can never become a fagot of proof, —
the signs are all minus.
We have recently had a good illustration of the fact that the spread
of responsibility is no guarantee of a sound conclusion, even when the
responsibility is shared by scientific men more or less eminent in the par-
ticular field of knowledge to which the observed phenomena belong. And
since this episode in the history of physical science also shows how
potent unrecognized psychological causes are, even in the most objective
and tangible field of science, we cannot resist the opportunity to scan its
lesson.
The "N"-Ray Delusion.
If one consults the various volumes of Science Abstracts, Section A.
— Physics,''^ and looks through the indexes under "Rays and Radiations"
for "n-rays," he finds a curious fact : Before 1904 and since 1909 no ab-
stracts on the topic appear ; but beginning with 1904, for each successive
T^ Phantasms of the Living, pp. 19^ aa
^* Cf., Quotation from Gumey, p. 465, supra,
^« Cf., QuoUtion from Stewart, pp. 464-5» supra,
'* Cf., Quotation from Sidgwick, p. 468, supra.
^s Published in London and prepared by the Ph3rs!cal Society of London, with
the assistance of internationally affiliated organizations.
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496 APPENDIX C
year, their number is as follows : 77, 8, 3, i, o, i. A closer inspection of
the literature reveals the following remarkable history :
Professor Blondlot, the eminent physicist of Nancy, who was elected
a correspondent of the Academy of Science to fill the vacancy caused
by the death of Helmholtz, discovered the n-ray (so named in honor of
Nancy)/* The presence of the »-ray was determined by the decrease
of the resistance of a spark-gap, by the increased glow of a platinum
wire, by the increased luminosity of a phosphorescent surface/^ It was
fotmd to emanate from the solar radiation and from bodies in which it
was stored.
The discovery was promptly confirmed by other scientists : C. Gutton,
Mascart, Virtz, H. Bordier, E. Bichat, J. Meyer, J. Becquerel, J. M. de
Lepinay, H. Bagard, E. Rothe, G. Sagnac,'and others. As investigation
progressed n-ray knowledge became more refined and hypotheses more
complex; under some circumstances the phosphorescent screen was
dimmed when it was expected to become more luminous, and n^-rays
with antagonistic or contrary eflfects were discovered. Brcydel dis-
cussed iia-rays.'* Ponderable rays or "heavy emissions'' were discovered.
Applications of the new knowledge were made in fields outside of
physics. Corson applied n-rays to chemistry ;^* M. Lambert and E. Meyer
studied their effects upon biological phenomena ;•* E. Meyer up<m plants f^
Bohn applied them to explain irregular tropic reactions of a nereid; A.
Charpentier fotmd that compression of a nerve, and that activity in nerve-
centers and in certain portions of the brain, were accompanied by the
emission of n-rays ;** and that the application of the n-ray to the seventh
cervical was accompanied by the dilation of the pupil varjdng from 0.5
mm. to I mm.;®' that its application to the sense-organs or the proper
nerve-centers lowered the threshold of sensitivity;®* that the maximum
effect as shown by the screen was obtained by application of the n-ray
to the Rolandic region of the skull ;•• G. Ballet observed the emission of
T* Vide, Blondlot : "N" Rays. Tr. by Garcin. lx>ndon, 1905.
^^The determinations had to be made by the eye since the n-ray gave no
photographic effect.
T8 Electr. Paris, 1904, 4i : 325-
^•Comptes Rendus des Siances de VAcadimie des Sciences, 1904, 138:1423-5.
•0 Ihid., pp. 1284-5.
81 Ibid., pp. 101-2, 272-3.
8«/Wd., 1903, 137:1377-80.
M/Wrf., 1904, 138:270-2.
•* Ibid., pp. 584-6, 648. This fact explained to Blondlot why the change in
luminosity affected the eye and not the photographic plate.
M/Wrf., pp. 715-7.
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GROUNDS FOR SCIENTIFIC CAUTION 497
n-rays from the pathological portions of the nervous system ,-*• A. Broca
studied the relation between n-rays and the brain ;®^ A. Broca and A.
Zimmem studied the condition of the spinal cord as shown by n-ray
emission;*® and it appears that M. di Brazza, a student at Liege, discov-
ered rays emitted from an active brain which differing from the »-ray
he called i-rays (in honor of Italy)."
In spite of this generous "spread of responsibility" the literature
contributed adverse criticism; other physicists carefully repeated Blond-
lot's experiments and found no n-rays : Donath at Berlin, Kaufmann at
Bonn, Clossen at Hamburg, Pacini at Rome, and Zahn, O. Lummer, C.
C. Schenck, E. Gehrcke, W. A. Nagel, Rudge, McKendrick and Col-
quhoun, F. Bonola, G. Cavina, A. Turpain, E. Salvioni, A. A. C. Swin-
ton, among others. The situation was precarious. The n-rays could not
be found outside of France, and the discussion threatened to take on
the color of a national issue. In the latter part of 1904 (November 5
to December 10) the Revue Scientifique made a census of opinion re-
vealing a substantial number of French scientists among the opposition.
The potency of unrecognized psychological causes for error is
shown by the head-long course of the n-ray delusion in the face of cur-
rent criticism that pointed out the error specifically. As early as Jan-
uary 21, 1904, A. A. C. Swinton, who had repeated most of Blondlot's
experiments without finding a trace of the phenomena described by
Blondlot, suggested '^ that the observations must be due not to physical
but to physiological processes, which are not operative in the case of all
persons ; and on June 4, 1904, E. Salvioni, who having had poor success
in reproducing Blondlot's phenomena had turned to studying the
subjective sources of error, announced '^ his conclusion that a particular
condition of sensibility is required; that the phenomena are comparable
to the luminous phenomena of the so-called animal magnetism, and odic
force. A. Turpain made a number of observations in order to detect
the action of n-rays upon a phosphorescent screen, using all the supposed
sources of n-rays, such as a Nemst lamp, a file, and a magnetic or Hertz-
ian field, and the affirmative results amounted to 80% ; but on arrang-
ing the experiments in such a manner that the observer did not know
•• Ibid., pp. 524-6.
^'^ Ibid,, pp. 1161-3.
^^Ibid., pp. 1239-41.
^•Harper's Weekly, 1905, 49:69.
•^Nature, 69:272.
^^Atti della R. accademia dei lincei. Roma, 13:610-6, 703-6.
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498 APPENDIX C
whether the action of n-rays was to be expected or not, he found that
the affirmative results were reduced to 50%, thus showing that self-sug-
gestion plays the most decisive part in them.** And R. W. Wood, of
Johns Hopkins University, when in France, visited a laboratory to wit-
ness the phenomena, and found that when the observer did not know
what to expect his observations were in error.**
Physicists are agreed that the n-ray is a delusion.** All of its phe-
nomena have been assimilated to known causes. But a delusion, once
supported by men of eminence, is well-nigh immortal; it will find its
adherents in men eminent in other fields and in the intelligent but non-
technical public ; its applications ever grow in variety. It is likely that
n-rays will still be used to measure the wave length of oscillations in the
nerve of a frog; to locate and diagnose pathological conditions of the
body ; to find and identify overtones ; to determine the psychic power of
a person ; to analyze his character ; *• to explain telepathy, — for are not
the emissions of n-rays from the brain the long suspected "brain-
waves" ? At any rate "brain-waves" have been often suggested *• as ex-
planatory of telepathy, the transmission of thought by radiation has been
studied,*^ and, finally, n-rays have been employed to explain telepathy.*'
Tunzelmann, five years after the hypothesis had been officially buried,
accounted for the transference of images from his family circle to his
own mind, in a few thought-transference experiments he was inspired
to try after reading Hudson's "Law of Psychic Phenomena," by the
n-rays traversing the closed eyelids and the skull (p. 628).**
9^ Bulletin des Stances d la Sociiti Frangaise de Physique, 1906, 1:94-100.
»» Vide, Harper's Weekly, 1905, 49: 57-8.
•* Vide, G. F. Stradling : A resum^ of the literature of the n-rays, the n^-
rays, the physiological rays, and the heavy emission. Journal of the Franklin In-
stitute, Philadelphia, 1907, 164:57-74, 113- 130, 177-199. Reference is made to 278
articles.
•* Hooker says the emitted rays from a passionate man have a red hue ; from
a well-intentioned man, pink ; cf.. Lancet, London, October 1904, 2 : 1380.
»«J. T. K.: Spectator, January 30, 1869, pp. 136-7; cf., also, ibid,, 133-4;
Barrett, Gurney, and Myers: Phantasms of the Living, vol. I, pp. 11 1-2; Nine-
teenth Century, 1882, 11:900; Mark Twain: Harper's Monthly, December 1891,
84:100^.; Crookes: Proceedings S.P.R., 1896-97; 12:352!!.; Podmore: Nat-
uralization of the Supernatural, 1908, p. 11; Barrett: Psychical Research, 191 1,
pp. 107 f.
*7 Benigni : Observation sur la propagation de la pens^ par radiation.
••K6raval: Rayons n et transmission de la pens^. Echo Med., 1904, p. 51;
Tunzelmann: A Treatise on Electrical Theory. London, 191a Appendix R, pp.
626-632.
•• Op. cit.
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GROUNDS FOR SCIENTIFIC CAUTION 499
The chief lessons to be drawn from this brief narrative arc :
(i) That "spread of responsibility" in establishing a matter of fact,
even in a field where the facts are regularly identified by wholly objec-
tive criteria, and even when the experimenters are men of eminence in
the field to which the observed phenomena properly belong, is no guar-
antee of the existence of the alleged fact, unless the responsibility is
shared by the main body of authorities in that field; the "fagot theory"
is fallacious.
(2) That unrecognized psychological sources of error are potent for
delusion, even when the investigators are familiar not only with the ex-
perimental method, but also with the field of phenomena in which they
are working, and even when the sources of error are specifically pointed
out by capable critics.
(3) And that since the investigators may be unable to profit from
the critics, it would seem that, where psychological sources of error are
concerned, some experience in experimental psychology is necessary in
order to understand precisely what the endangering psychological pro-
cesses are and how to reckon with them in the control of experimental
conditions.
Conclusion.
Recurring to the general problem of the trustworthiness of the ex-
istent evidence for telepathy, the reader has probably found in this ap-
pendix sufficient grounds for scientific caution.
The best of the evidence, that which won over the agnostic members
of the Committee of the S. P. R. to the belief in thought-transference to
a normal percipient, and which occupied first place in the Society's
authoritative Proceedings, has suffered a fatal decline. The Conmiittee
showed caution in guarding against fraud and error and expressed their
belief that both had been eliminated. Contemporaneous critics pointed
out the possible operation of both, and challenged the trustworthiness of
the results. Collusion was later confessed by one or more of the parties
to the experiments in both of the principal series. As against the pre-
sumption of false confession, or a segregation of untainted results, there
remains in the published records of both series of experiments internal
evidence of the use of code. Within three years of the conclusion of
both series, the Society apparently sought to suppress their re-publica-
tion, although it has permitted recent resumes of both. The Committee
fully expected to have those most successful results freely verified in
further and more stringently controlled experiments with the same and
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500 APPENDIX C
with other favorable percipients; and also to find in the course of in-
vestigation a general distribution of the telepathic capacity among nor-
mal persons. Their own percipients suddenly declined to continue the
experiments, supporting the h)rpothesis of collusion, the successful re-
sults have never been equaled with other percipients, and the imposing
mass of experimental results published from other centers of investiga-
tion, not to mention a very considerable amount of negative results
which has come to the notice of the Society and which it has declined
to publish,*^ controverts the expectation of the Conunittee that the tele-
pathic capacity is common.
The best of the Society's evidence for thought-transference to a
hypnotized percipient was obtained under unsatisfactory conditions : In-
stead of emplo3dng as hypnotist and agent a scientific man, such as Dr.
Bramwell, who was also one of its members, the Society employed a
young man who had previously been engaged in giving public demon-
strations of hypnotism and of thought-reading, and who was a party to
one of the series of experiments which was later suppressed by the So-
ciety and which, according to the internal evidence of the published re-
ports, depended upon collusion in the use of code for its successful
results.
Apart from the unsatisfactory nature of the results of the experi-
ments, the general conduct of the investigation casts discredit upon the
conclusions drawn from the data. Appeal was constantly made for the
assistance of incompetent investigators, which, besides facilitating the
accumulation of results which must be entirely untrustworthy through
gross error in procedure and records, encouraged skilled collusionists to
match wits with the Society's representatives in a contest so unequal that
positive results of a spurious character were insured. The "fagot theory"
which provided for a "proof" of telepathy by the "spread of responsibil-
ity" over so large a number of reputable persons in the control of the
various series of successful experiments that it would be easier to believe
that telepathy is a fact than to believe that all of the reputable persons
were in error, is fallacious, in that the difficulties involved in such investi-
gation were not duly appreciated.
The "spread of responsibility" for the establishment of the psycho-
logical phenomenon of telepathy is much inferior to the "spread of re-
sponsibility" for the establishment of the physical phenomenon of the
n-ray, since many men eminent in the field of physics were involved in
100 Vide, quotation from Thomas, p. a6, supra.
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GROUNDS FOR SCIENTIFIC CAUTION 501
the latter, and but very few eminent experimental psychologists arc in-
volved in the former, yet the body of competent physicists agree that the
n-ray was a delusion. Unless the "spread of responsibility" for telep-
athy can be extended to include the main body of experimental psychol-
ogists, telepathy will certainly share the fate of the n-ray, and the text-
books in the history of psychology will speak of the "thought-transfer-
ence delusion." In the one case, n-rays could be found only by physi-
cists, in physical laboratories, in France in 1904-6; in the other, thought-
transference could be found only by eminent men who were not psy-
chologists, in places other than psychological laboratories, in England
and Ireland in 1882-92.
The reader should not regard the body of psychologists as standing
firmly upon the laws of the "isolated conductivity" of the neurons, the
"centripetal" course of nervous impulse in hallucination, and the inviol-
ability of the sensorial gateway, and dogmatically decreeing telepathy out
of existence ; the psychologists recognize the possibilities of advancement
of knowledge in their field and they would survive telepathy, should it ap-
pear with the proper credentials. They would even welcome it with
open arms, just as physicists have welcomed o, P, and y rays. Their
agnosticism is scientific, not dogmatic.
Neither should the reader get the impression that the Society for
Psychical Research has not justified its existence, for it has been of great
service to mankind, particularly in helping it to rid itself of fraud and
delusion, and in stimulating neglected lines of research from which great
benefits are sure to come. No final or decisive knowledge concerning
telepathy would have been likely for centuries had it not stimulated di-
rect research in it. Even the errors in its investigations arc of value in
compelling a more accurate definition of the scientific method, and in il-
lustrating our utter dependence upon this method for sotmd knowledge
of all matters pertaining to the phenomenal world.
The errors made in the conduct of the investigation of thought-
transference bear to present and future investigators a valuable lesson
for which credit is due the eminent members of the Committee: tech-
nical experience in experimental psychology is requisite both for the
control of the experiments and for the interpretation of the results. It
is to their credit that the questionable evidence was suppressed, and it is
regrettable that any members of the Society promote the telepathic hy-
pothesis while it occupies so questionable a status. Unfortunately, so
long as there is so great a disparity in the capacities of the various stu-
dents of the problem of telepathy to properly evaluate the evidence in
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502 APPENDIX C
the experimental results, so long may the interested and inquiring public
expect to be presented with opinions as varying and contradictory as are
the following:
Professor W. F. Barrett, in 1911 :
Thought-transference ... is not, in my judgment, a subject of controversy.
It is established beyond the possibility of challenge to those who will really exam-
ine the evidence.^***
Ivor LI. Tuckett, in 1912:
In spite of Professor Barrett's dictum, the fact remains that several of the
more critical psychical researchers who have thoroughly examined the evidence
have ultimately come to the conclusion that the case for telepathy is completely
unproven.^®*
Professor C. S. Minot, in 1895 :
After a thorough examination of the evidence adduced, I am brought to the
conclusion that thought-transference, even as a hypothetical explanation, is a su-
perfluous conccption.*<>«
Professor G. Stanley Hall, in 1896:
We are profoundly convinced [that] the entire telepathic presumption is yet
very far from being a prima facie case, is premature at best, and that it is at pres-
ent with its rank mazes of mystic guess-work a source of befuddlement and ob-
fuscation.***
Accepting Professor Sidgwick's dictum that the agreement of ex-
perts must be the final test,^®* the statement of Gumey that the standard
of evidence must be drawn from the recognized departments of knowl-
edge,*®* together with Professor Sidgwick's definition of sufficient evi-
dence,^^ it is certainly true that the Society, on account of its fiascoes
and its persistent lack of psychological vision, is immeasurably farther
from its goal today than it was in 1886, in its effort to produce proof of
thought-transference.
Hope for the Society lies in adopting the program of the Hermit of
Prague *•• and in cooperating with a psychological laboratory.
^^^ London Daily News, September 6, 191 1 ; quoted in Bedrock, i : 180- 1.
101 Bedrock, 1 : 193.
^^^ North American Review, 160:327.
^^ American Journal of Psychology, 7: 137. For other quotations from stu-
dents of the experimental data, vide, "The Present Status of Telepathy," in Part
I, pp. 17 e,, supra.
io» Supra, p. 468.
io« Supra, p. 462.
10^ Supra, p. 463.
^M Supra, p. 2a
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APPENDIX D.
INVESTIGATION WITH A ^TRUMPET** MEDIUM.
In the Autamn of 1913 the writer (The Fellow in Psychical Research) be-
came a member of the Gtlifornia Psychical Research Society, the object of which
is, as stated in its Constitution, "to carry on and to promote investigation of psy-
chical and supernormal phenomena," and "to develop a scientific interpretation of
them." Owing to the compatibility of the aim of the Society with the purposes
of the Division of Psychical Research, a program of cooperative research was im-
mediately entered upon. After a season's work, in accordance with a provision
of the Constitution that "The Reports of the investigation committee shall be fur-
nished the members," the following Report was drawn up, read to the Society,
accepted, and printed. As internal evidence will show, its main purpose was (a)
to illustrate a scientific method of investigation, (b) to make specific, through its
preliminary findings, certain critical problems for research, and (c) to propose a
program for continued investigation which should be of scientific value. Although
the Report was addressed to the Society and its form was largely determined by
the need of arousing the members to a consciousness of the importance of scien-
tific work, its method and program were thought to be of sufficient interest to
students of psychical research to warrant its permanent record in professional
publications.
The writer acted as experimenter for the investigation committee, and as-
sisted in drawing up the report.
INVESTIGATION WITH A "TRUMPET" MEDIUM.^
By the California Psychical Research Society.
Mrs. Key,* who has given series of seances before psychical so-
cieties and prominent investigators in Boston, Paris, and California,
*This report is reprinted in a slightly revised form from the Proceedings
of the American Society for Psychical Research, New York, 1914, 8:201-253.
Obligations to the American Society are hereby acknowledged.
«The identity of the psychic the Society withholds for the reason that her
reputation as a semi-professional medium might suffer temporary injury through
the experimenter's part of this preliminary report. References in the literature
of psychical research, the names of organizations and investigators, the places of
investigation, and the names of the psychic's customary controls, consequently,
cannot be specifically given in this report
503
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504 APPENDIX D
placed herself without pay at the service of the California Psychical Re-
search Society for investigation of the phenomena which occur in her
presence.
She is an American gentlewoman of refinement and culture, and is
known to her closest friends for her high moral character, and to the
members of the Society for her sincere and whole-hearted cooperation
in investigation.
That she is to be classed as one of the more remarkable psychics
of this generation is attested by the various reports upon the investiga-
tion of her phenomena, and by members of our Society.
A noted student of psychical research, after several sittings with
her, brought her to the attention of investigating bodies. He published
in 1892 a report in which he stated that she was entirely disconnected in
a physical way from the phenomena which occurred about her; and
that she not only cheerfully submitted to crucial conditions but welcomed
"tests." In the subsequent investigation, involving many sittings, the
report of which was published in the following year, objects several feet
beyond her reach, according to measurement, were moved, handled, and
deftly manipulated in touching the sitters in the dark; writing occurred
on books and sheets of * paper ; raps were intelligently given, and
"trumpet" voices spoke. Before the phenomena b^an, the psychic had
been bound and the bindings sealed to her chair, and after the seance
was over, all bindings were found to be intact. One of the eminent wit-
nesses saw the hand of the control, which had just written upon a book,
pass, upon request, rapidly up and down, with fingers outspread, between
himself and a streak of light, six feet from the psychic's left hand.
A noted doctor, upon another occasion, in 1907, recorded in a repu-
table journal his astonishment at the precision of the movement of the
tnmipet in the dark, while the psychic was securely bound to her chair.
An investigator of international reputation attests to the power of
prevision on the part of her controls. He had arrangements made for a
journey, with a ticket in his pocket determining a definite route. He
was told in the seance conmiunications that, he would make the journey^
but that he would not take that route and that many things of a most
unusual and unexpected nature were to occur. All these events, not in
the least capable of being influenced by any state of his mind aroused
by the astonishing prophecies, transpired.
Some of the members of our Society who have had sittings with the
more renowned psychics at home and abroad attest that both the psy-
chical and the physical phenomena which occur in this psychic's presence
are equal to any they have ever witnessed.
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INVESTIGATION WITH A "TRUMPET^' MEDIUM 505
The Society is confident, therefore, that the phenomena it is inves-
tigating are of the highest order, and that its findings will in no sense
descend to the common expose of conscious fraud, but will make a sub-
stantial contribution to knowledge in this field.
Investigation beg^ in September, 1913, (after November ist, in the
rooms of the Society, at 320 Market street, San Francisco) and con-
tinued until May 9, 1914. The seances were held Saturday afternoons,
usually from 2 to 5 o'clock, in complete darkness. The number of sitters
varied from 3 to 12, but usually numbered about 8.
Owing to the alleged difficulty of keeping "test" conditions for the
customary phenomena, the Society resolved to use methods of investiga-
tion similar to those employed abroad with Eusapia Palladino,* and in
March Dr. Coover, with whom the Society has been cooperating through-
out the year in investigating clairvoyant and telepathic capacity in psy-
chics,* consented to undertake the experimenter's task of providing and
controlling such scientific instruments as are calculated to portray accur-
ately and objectively what takes place. His report follows :
DR. COOVER'S REPORT.
The writer feels a bit apologetic in reporting upon the investigation
of "physical phenomena," not only because its history is unsavory, but
because he had resolutely set himself to the task of determining whether
"psychics" possess clairvoyant or telepathic powers, and of subjecting
whatever processes should come to hand to psychological analysis and
study. His apparatus consisted of a pack of playing cards and a dice-
box, and he was inclined to take the "voices" for what they proclaimed
themselves to be, so long as they would name his cards.
But psychological research came to a halt, in the Society's seances,
in an unexpected manner. The "independent" voices, who could report
upon the safety of relatives in Mexico and could define the attitude of
Japan toward the quarreling republics, could not, even after months of
effort, bring themselves to naming the cards. They could see the card
and they had the power of speech, but they became completely exhausted
when they tried to coordinate these two powers.' It is understood that
• Ftrf^, Lombroso : After Death — What? 1909. Gtrrington: Eusapia Palla-
dino and her Phenomena, 1909. Podmore: The Newer Spiritualism.
* Vide, pp. 126, footnote 197, and 503, supra.
•The control "Dr. Truman" suggested a possible explanation daring the
stance of January 17, 1914: "I think it would be best if our psychic was wholly
oblivious of the experiment. Our psychic becomes over-anxious, and we cannot
use the forces."
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APPENDIX D
they are developing for this kind of work so as to furnish the psychol-
ogists of the world a "survey" of "spirit" endowment in our next series
of investigations.
In the meantime the customary phenomena were taking place: the
trumpet was rapped and levitated ; voices of three orders gave conmiimi-
cations. Material was at hand for physiological and physical investiga-
tion. And is not the scientific world yet divided upon Eusapia's phe-
nomena?*
This report is based principally upon the following nine consecutive
seances :
Date
Instruments
Object
March 14, 1914.
Telegraph instrument.
Code.
March 21,
«<
Kymograph, Telegraph
instrument.
Physical Condition of the psychic
March 28,
«
Kymograph, Telegraph
instrument
Physical Condition of the psychic
April 4.
«
Kymograph, Telegraph
instrument
Physical Condition of the psychic.
April II,
u
Scales.
Weigh psychic force.
April 18,
it
it
Weigh psychic force.
April 35,
tt
tt
Weigh psychic force.
Maya.
u
tt
Weigh psychic force.
May 9,
«
Telegraph instrument.
Code, finger-print, touch in enclosed
Scales, Smoked paper.
space.
I. Relation of the "Voices" to the Psychic's Physiological
Processes.
The public has been informed through the Proceedings ^ of the Am.
S. P. R. and through the Open Court • of the anomalous character of the
voices of Mrs. Blake, of Braderick, Ohio; how they came from a "trum-
pet," in broad daylight, without apparent lip or throat movement, when
one end of the trumpet is held at the medium's ear, in her hand lying on
her lap, and even in the hands of her sitters while the medium is touch-
ing it with the tips of her fingers. And the investigators have specu-
* Sir Oliver Lodge, the great English physical scientist, and head of Birming-
ham University, Prof. Chas. Richet, the great French physiologist, Cesare Lorn-
broso, the great Italian criminologist, besides other eminent scientists, including,
I believe, some psychologists (colleagues of Mosso), defend the hypothesis that
Eusapia's phenomena are produced otherwise than through the normal direct
agency of the psychic
' The case of Mrs. Blake. Proceedings Am. 5*. P. R., 1913, 7 : 570-788.
•David P. Abbott: The history of a strange case; a study in occultism.
Open Conrt, May and June, 1908.
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INVESTIGATION WITH A "tRUMPET"' MEDIUM 507
lated upon the part the eustachian tube and the bones of the head play
in their production. Dr. Guthrie puts the alternatives : "The conversa-
tion is either produced by Mrs. Blake talking through her ear or by the
voice of a denizen of the other world." •
The public has also been made acquainted with the wonderful
trumpet voice of Mrs. S. which spoke by the hour to the sitters in Mr.
B. O. Flower's house while the psychic was securely bound to her chair,
and her hands and feet tied with tape which was tacked to the chair and
to the floor. Mr. Hamlin Garland attested that "so far as touch and hear-
ing go, Mrs. S.'s arms and feet had nothing whatever to do (in any
ordinary way) with the movement of the cone [trumpet]." "
And the public has also learned of the marvelous independent voice
of the young Miss Burton, that is said to sing simultaneously with the
exquisite independent whistling,^* and to be produced by a throat which
when inspected, in the dark, two feet from that of the psychic, had the
power of forming and removing, at command, an enlargement of a sub-
lingtud gland similar to the psychic's own swollen gland."
As to the exact manner in which these voices are produced, there is
diflference of opinion. Professor Hyslop represents psychological opinion
in regarding "independent" voices as automatic vocal activity for which
the psychic has anaesthesia: she hears the voices, but not feeling her
vocal organs in operation, or, I suppose, her breathing change, she must
take them to be "independent." But, and this is the point, investigation
has not yet fastened the production of the voices upon Mrs. Blake, al-
though Professor Hyslop thinks it probable that her vocal organs operate
incipiently in sympathetic rapport with them, since he, upon one occa-
sion, was able to observe that slight action of her vocal organs accom-
panied the muffled sounds in the trumpet. And the sitters of the Society's
seances, with possibly a few exceptions, have satisfied themselves of the
actual independence of the voices produced by our psychic.
A good method of determining the facts seems desirable, and the
writer believes that respiration curves and pulse curves, although rather
diflicult to manage, especially in conjunction with a signal-recorder and
a time-marker, go a long way toward meeting this end.
The sitters in the Society's dark seances hear whispered or aspirated
• Proceedings Am. S. P. R., 7 : S86.
i« Report of dark s&nces, with a non-professional psychic, for voices and the
movement of objects without contact. Psychical Review, 1894, 2:152-177.
^^Proceedings Am.S.P.R,, 19", 5: 60.
" Journal Am. S, P. R., 1909, 3 : 7io.
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508 APPENDIX D
voices ringing through the trumpet with a distinct metallic quality, and
whispered voices of less intensity coming out of the air, both of which
are located variously anywhere in the room, and variously by the differ-
ent sitters in any given instance, but usually their source is granted to be
in the upper air of the center of the room, beyond the reach of the
psychic. These two kinds of voices are "independent," but shall be dis-
tinguished in this report by calling them "trumpet" and "independent"
voices, respectively. There is in addition to these an "automatic" voice,
of a little girl, which is not whispered or aspirated, but vocalized nat-
urally, and is produced through the psychic's vocal organs.
The relation of all these voices to the psychic's physiological pro-
cesses is perhaps more than suggested by the curves reproduced on the
following pages, which were taken with apparatus brought to the
seance-room in the first instance for stud3dng the psychic's physical con-
dition during the production of seance phenomena; it was intended to
record any changes in the rate or character of the pulse or in the ampli-
tude or character of the respiration, and thus determine deviation from
normal condition.
The apparatus (Fig. 8) consists of (i) a kymograph, the drum of
which was turned by clockwork so as to move the smoked paper on its
surface at the rate of 1.5 cm. per second; (2) a Marey tambour with a
writing-finger actuated by a capsule (sphygmograph) fastened over the
carotid artery by bands of tape around the neck, for recording the pulse ;
(3) another Marey tambour, actuated by a pneumograph fastened
around the chest, for recording the respiration; (4) a vibrating time-
marker recording fifths of seconds; (5) a writing-finger, controlled by
the experimenter, for making signals on the drum at the moment phe-
nomena occurred. The writing-fingers were set in a line vertically to
the movement of the smoked paper on the drum and all made their rec-
ords synchronously whenever the drum was started by releasing the
brake.
Records were taken throughout three seances (March 21, 28, April
4). Owing to the impossibility of changing paper on the drum during
a seance, all records taken during the three hours of the seance had to
be made on one smoked paper, necessitating a shifting of the drum so as
to gain the length of three or four circumferences, which resulted in the
records tracing over each other to some extent, thus making their direct
reproduction unsuitable for illustrative purposes. (Figure 9 shows the
records taken March 28th and April 4th, the size being reduced to .34
diameters.) But all records are distinct, easily identified, and can be ac-
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INVESTIGATION WITH A "tRUMPET" MEDIUM
509
curately reproduced by tracing them through carbon paper in their syn-
chronous groups.
The following tables of records for the three seances show the num-
ber of records taken, the number of respirations or the characteristic of
the respiration curve, the number of pulse beats or the characteristic of
the pulse curve, the length of the record in seconds, the condition of the
psychic and the phenomena present during the interval of the record.
"Trance" here merely indicates that the psychic is in readiness for phe-
nomena to occur, and not that the trance state was known to be present.
"Katie" is an "automatic" voice, "General Roland" and "Dr. Truman"
are "trumpet" voices, and "Professor James" is an "independent" voice.
Records of March 21,
No. Pneumograph Sphygmograph Time Phenomena
/. 3.5 12.2 104 Normal; silent.
2, 4 + Irreg. 12.3 + Irreg. 10.6 + 7.2 Normal : silent + speaking.
J. Very Weak (Trace) 19.6 Trance; quiet
4. 4 Reg. Weak* 9-6 Trance, (Sitters singing).
5. * 2.0 Trance.
(After No. 5 the table vibrated, Mrs. L. was touched by the trumpet, papers
on the table were moved, the telegraph instrument was operated.)
6. (Trace) 158 Trance; during and after
sitters' singing.
7. 5 Reg. Weak (Trace) 16.8 Trance; Wm. James speak-
ing.
8. 3 8.0 Trance; Katie speaking.
9. 2 Very Weak 74 Trance; quiet.
JO. t 15.6 Waking; speaking.
11. 8.6 Approaching normal.
12. (7}4 resp.) 25.2 Normal; light on.
Records of March 28.
No. Pneumograph Sphygmograph Time Phenomena
1. 3.7 16 1 1.6 Normal; quiet. Dark.
2. 5.3+ 21+4 15.4 + 3.2 Normal ; quiet + speaking.
J. 2.2 t 7-6 Normal; quiet.
4. 2.8+ 1 0.0 -f- 2.6 Following trance ; quiet +
speaking.
5. 24 Low, Even 7.6 Trance; quiet; sitters con-
versing.
6. (Tremulous) 2.9 Trance; James speaking.
♦Recorder pulled from the drum by strain from the tubing.
tRecorder disconnected from pneumograph by tubing pulling apart.
^Recorder pulled from drum, even though tubing was clamped to table.
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510
APPENDIX D
Records of March 28--Continued.
No.
Pneumograph
Sphygmograph
Time
Phenomena
7.
Irreg.
....
13.6
Trance ; Truman, speaking
-h quiet -h speaking.
8,
2-1-
9-2
Trance; Truman, quiet -h
speaking.
9-
Irrcg.
....
12J2
Trance; Truman, speaking.
10.
3
144
Trance ; Truman, speaking
+ quiet
II,
1.7
7.0
Trance; Truman, quiet +
speaking.
12.
3 Irreg. Greater
amplitude.
. 1 . .
144
Trance; Katie speaking.
13-
2 Irreg.
....
94
Trance; Katie speaking.
14-
Reg. -h Irreg.
....
11 J2
Normal ; quiet -h speaking.
15-
Irreg.
(Trace)
Records .
8.8
of AprU 4'
Normal; light on.
No.
Pneumograph
Sphygmograph
Time
Phenomena
I.
7.3 + 1
2a3 + 6
23.7 + Z^^
Normal ; quiet + speaking.**
2.
1.0 + 5-7
Irreg. + Reg.
2.8 + 17.3 Normal ; speaking + quiet +
"No" + quiet
3-
Irreg. -h Reg.
Irreg. + Reg.
3.1 + 4.2
Normal ; speaking -h quiet.
4'
Irreg.
Irreg.
12.8
Trance; James speaking.**
5.
Irreg.
Irreg.
7-6
Trance; James speaking.
6.
Z7
14.5
10.7
Trance; quiet
7.
Irreg.
Irreg.
18.2
Trance; Dr. Truman speak-
«riO- 18
8.
Low
(Trace)
4.6 + 3.0
ing.
Normal
p.
Reg. -h Irreg.
Reg. + Irreg.
20.2 -h 9
Normal ; quiet + speaking.
10.
Irreg.
Irreg.
3.8
Normal; speaking.
Out of an aggregate of 37 records, 8 were taken when the psychic
was normal before phenomena occurred, 8 when normal or approaching
normal after phenomena had ceased, i followed trance out of which the
psychic was aroused before phenomena began, 7 while the psychic was
apparently in trance and was quiet, 3 while the "automatic" voice was
speaking, 6 while a "trumpet" voice was speaking, and 4 while an "in-
dependent" voice was speaking.
!• "No, it doesn't" (in reply to experimenter's question whether the apparatus
interfered with the psychic's breathing).
^* "I wish I might be able to speak more distinctly so as to make a perfect
record."
IS "We thank you for your painstaking interest and [here the record stopped]
work."
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INVESTIGATION WITH A "TRUMPET'' MEDIUM 511
It would seem that we obtained sufficient data to determine very
accurately the physical condition of the psychic, as compared with her
normal condition, during the production of seance phenomena, and to
state whether she is in a trance state, and whether the diflFerent kinds of
voices or whether the diflFerent s6ance personalities correlate with the
same or with diflFerent physical states. As a matter of fact, our data on
the rate and amplitude of respiration and pulse are exceedingly limited.
We have only 7 records of both respiration and pulse from which we
can calculate rate, and but one of them was taken during trance ; it does
not show any significant deviation from normal records of other days,
but it is higher in rate of pulse than the preceding record of the same
day, which, with Record 12, of March 21, indicates an acceleration of
pulse during the seance ; there is also indication that immediately after
the seance the rate is very high (March 21), and that in about 20 min-
utes it subsides to normal (April 4).
The following table gives our complete results for rate of respira-
tion and rate of pulse :
featei« of
Date Record State
March 21 i Normal
« 2 "
12
" Counted just after stance closed
** 28 I Normal
" 2 **
April 4 I
" 6 Trance
" Counted 20 min. after close of stance
There is evidence that the psychic's pulse changes its rate consider-
ably within short intervals of time; and the form of the respiration
curves indicates a decrease in amplitude during the seance. It is prob-
able that the psychic's physical state varies much from normal, but the
question must be left to be settled by our further investigation.
The meagemess of our data for determining the physical state of
the psychic during seance phenomena resulted from two causes : ( i ) In
the records of March 21, and March 28, there were blanks, owing to
one or both of the writing-fingers being pulled out of place; and (2) in
all of the records taken during speaking, either of the psychic's voice or
Respiration
Pulse
19.5
67
16.2
66.6
17
79
92
18.1
79
19
77
17.6
6&2
19.7
774
72
1* These rates are corrected from the kymograph records by multiplsring by
100/105 (Time-marker beat 315 times a minute instead of 300 times).
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512
APPENDIX D
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INVESTIGATION WITH A "TRUMPET'' MEDIUM 515
of the seance voices, both respiration and pulse curves are so much dis-
turbed that they contribute nothing to our primary inquiry.
The significance of the former cause will be noticed later in the
consideration of the relation of the physical phenomena to the psychic's
organism; present interest lies in the significance of the irregularity of
the respiration and pulse curves during the speaking of either the psy-
chic or the seance voices.
The nature of this irregularity can be shown by records taken when
the psychic was normal ; a pair of curves is reproduced from each day,
in Figure lo (pp. 512 and 513).
It is only necessary to point out that when the psychic is quiet, the
curves are regular and rhythmic ; when the psychic speaks, the pressure
on the capsule over the carotid pulse becomes irregular owing to the
vocal organs interfering with the bandage around the neck which holds
the capsule in place, and the tracing becomes so irregular as to conceal
the pulse — becomes in eflFect a voice-curve; the respiration changes
from rhythmic to irregular, inspiration is quicker and deeper (shown by
the downward stroke in the lower curves of the pairs) and expiration
is slower, and intermittent or broken by the surd consonants (shown by
the upward stroke which changes from a smooth compound curve to an
irregular line, sometimes almost straight).
The same irregularities occur in the respiration and pulse Curves of
the psychic when the "automatic," "trumpet," and "independent" voices
speak in the s6ance.
Only the respiration curves can be shown for the "automatic"
voice, which, as the sitters know, uses the psychic's vocal organs. See
Figure 11 (p. 514).
During the last record "Katie" said: "We are anxious to have the
truth demonstrated."
For the "trumpet" voice, we may select the following four records :
Figure 12 (pp. 516 and 517).
In the first record "Dr. Truman" said: "We are all very interested
in this experimentation; as much as yourselves. . . ." During the
third : "Don't be discouraged ; it requires much patience ; much perse-
verance. Without faith to sow you could not reap." And during the
fourth: "We thank you for your painstaking interest and work.'*" (This
was the last record of the seance voices). His speaking was deliberate,
in phrases, dignified.
For the "independent" voice, perhaps the following will serve:
Figure 13 (pp. 518 and 519).
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516
APPENDIX D
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520 APPENDIX D
The pulse curve in a, above, was obtained accidentally; at that
point there were two thicknesses of paper on the drum caused by the
sheet lapping over for pasting, which brought the surface in contact
with the dislodged writing-finger.
During the second record, "Professor James" said : "I wish I might
be able to speak more distinctly so as to make a perfect record."
Now, it is well known that many subjects in the laboratory show
involuntary movement of the tongue " and of the larynx ^^ when they
read silently, think ^* words, or even hear words or songs ; and although
Professor Hyslop** was able to observe "action of Mrs. Blake's vocal
muscles very distinctly when [trumpet] communications were going on
with Dr. Guthrie" and he notices the coincidences between this vocal
action and the muffled sounds in the trumpet, and although the impres-
sion made upon him was that "the evidence was unmistakable that Mrs.
Blake's vocal muscles were used in producing the sounds," *^ he never-
theless appears inclined to regard this action as possibly merely sympa-
thetic: "That her vocal organs act at least sympathetically with the
voices in the trumpet there is no doubt, but that they cause the phenom-
ena is not proved by the imitative experiments [with a trumpet] re-
corded."" The same implication is to be fotmd in the reports of the
investigation of Miss Burton by two physicians, Drs. Smyth and Ham-
ilton: "We were permitted to examine [by feeling with the hand] the
larynx and lips of the psychic while the [independent] singing and
whistling was in progress. . . . Without being able to detect sound
issuing from her throat or mouth, the psychic's larynx vibrated in s)rm-
pathy with the deep contralto tones produced in the trumpet several feet
away." *• Professor Hyslop verified the fact of vibratory and muscular
movement in the throat synchronously with independent singing and
whistling, in his investigation of Miss Burton. This action he says, in
the introduction, "is at least sympathetic and would in most cases be
accepted as conclusive evidence of an adequate explanation of the phc-
iT Wyczoikowska : Theoretical and experimental studies in the mechanbm of
speech. Psychological Rev., 1913, 20 : 448-458.
^•Curtis: Automatic movements of the larynx. Am. Jr. Psych., 1899-1900,
11:237-239.
^* Strieker : Die Sprachvorstellungen, p. 16.
*• Op. cit, p. 721.
*i Op. cit, p. 721.
2» Op. cit, p. 602.
"Experiments with trance phenomena. Jr. Am. S.P.R., 1909, 3:707.
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INVESTIGATION WITH A '^TRUMPET" MEDIUM 521
nomenon. But several circumstances make this an issue still to be de-
termined." "
This interpretation of our results also occurred to the President and
others of our Society, and the records that were taken from normal uni-
versity students by the writer to illustrate, if not to prove, the improb-
ability of the "sympathetic activity" theory, may be of interest here.
The same apparatus was set up in Room 397 in the Psychological
Laboratory at Stanford University, and records were taken from two
young women who were attending one of the writer's classes.
The records from Miss Flatau will illustrate the facts. As shown
in the curves above, the carotid pulse curve is the upper, and the respira-
tion curve is the lower member of each pair. The first pair records the
changes caused by speaking aloud: "I wish I mig^t be able to speak
more distinctly"; the second pair records the changes caused by whis-
pering the sentence so that it could be heard by a companion ; the third,
by whispering with closed lips (she could feel the vocal organs move) ;
the fourth, by inner recitation of the sentence (with attention upon the
prontmciation rather than upon the meaning of the words). Figure 14
(p. 522).
Records i and 2 show the characteristic in expiration conunon to
the curves of the seance voices, as well as of the psychic's voice, which
results from the use of the air in the lungs by the vocal organs for
speech. Records 3 and 4, which were taken with i and 2 at the same
sitting, with the instruments in the same adjustment, show that "sympa-
thetic action" of the vocal organs, even when intentionally induced as in
Record 3, is but slightly transmitted by our instruments and then only
in the carotid pulse curve.**
If the reader will imagine that he hears the sentence pronounced in
a very dignified manner, and permits his vocal organs to act "sympa-
thetically" with the imagined voice, he will find that this sympathetic
activity is independent of his respiration and occurs synchronously with
inspiration as well as with expiration.
The fact then appears to be that the peculiar characteristic in the res-
piration curves is caused by the breath being conserved in expiration, by
the constricting movements of the vocal organs, and that articulated
** A case of hysteria. Proceedings Am. S. P. R., 1911, 5 143.
*»Thc experimenter is aware of great variation between individuals with
respect to the amount of involuntary activity of the vocal organs during silent
reading or recitation ; yet he suspects that further experiments will show that the
present apparatus is not well adapted to test its presence.
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TcdM Curve
Bwpiration Curve
Qniet
t * ^' • ■ i «
Speaking
I ■ ■ ■
ItecoRl 1. Speaking aloud
1
ft.«^t . Whispering ^
TtecordS.Speakii^ in a viAiisper
Quiet I Inducedvocal activity
* ■ ' * *
3. Whisperwitk closed Upts
Qttiet . ' SwnpathetJQ vocal activity
4. IxuKtr recitation
Fig. 14. — Records from Miss Flatau.
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INVESTIGATION WITH A "tRUMPET" MEDIUM 523
sounds, either vocalized or whispered, must take place. The hypothesis
that the restrained respiration may be due to the control of the dia-
phragm and intercostal muscles, as in the case of strained attention, and
that therefore movements of the vocal organs during restrained expira-
tion not being accompanied by constriction of the glottis, need not issue
in articulated sounds, may be dismissed as entirely improbable, since the
assumed control affects equally inspiration and expiration, while only ex-
piration was restrained. And if a critic were to still insist that the
peculiar circumstances of the seance may after all necessitate serious
consideration of this last hypothesis, it can be pointed out that partial
suppression of respiration by the assumed control could not account for
the irregular form of the expiration curve, which conforms precisely
with what one would expect on the assimiption that the breath was being
used for pronouncing syllables which make unequal and irregular de-
mands upon it; in other words, the expiration was not only partially
suppressed but it was intermittently stopped by the production of certain
consonantal sounds — the mutes.*' If the reader will turn back to the
respiration curves and note the minute irregularities in all of the expira-
tion curves taken when there was speaking, he will realize the force of
this point.
So far as our evidence goes it is wholly in the direction of the hy-
pothesis that the seance voices are caused by the vocal organs of the
psychic. She herself may be anaesthetic for her vocal activity and may
regard the voices as independent; at any rate, as will be shown later,
the hypothesis of conscious fraud seems highly improbable.
Further work by the use of the kymograph and the many useful
instruments for recording upon it is projected for next year's investi-
gation. The movement of the tongue and larynx can be directly re-
corded, and true "word curves" of the seance voices can be compared
with those of the psychic. Pulse and respiration can be determined for
states accompanying the various voices, and the question as to whether
there is trance or regional anaesthesia can be settled.
Other scientific instruments may be used to bring the question of
the relation between the seance voices and the psychic's vocal organs to
a definite solution : the dictaphone or telegraphone, with the transmitter
f* The fact of unequal demand of syllables upon the breath may be verified
by pronouncing for contrast, hat, pat; what, bought; kick, whizz, etc. It also
happens to be used in Webster's International Dictionary in the definition of "mute"
used as a noun in phonetics: "An element of speech formed by a position of
the mouth organs which stops the passage of breath;" as, p, b, t, d, k, g.
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524 APPENDIX D
at the lips of the psychic for recording any sounds issuing from them,
and a duplicate in the room or in the trumpet for recording tht "inde-
pendent" voice, would enable the experimenter, by comparison of rec-
ords, to determine whether "independent" voices occur at all without the
accompaniment of sound from the psychic's vocal organs, and would
throw light on the relative amount of the sound contributed by the
psychic's vocal organs, helping to determine whether all the sound is
produced by them. These instruments could record synchronously with
the laryngeal and respiration recorders so as to insure the proper adjust-
ment of the transmitter at the mouth during "independent" speaking.
Emulsion could be placed in the tnunpet for analysis of the air after
voices speak through it, to determine whether it is free from traces of
the psychic's breath which may have been prepared for easy detection,
and the results compared with the analysis of emulsion exposed to the
general air in the room in another trumpet which is under precise
control."
2. Relation of the "Physical Phenomena" to the Psychic's Body.
Upon the hypothesis that the seance voices are produced by the
psychic's organs of speech, it would be difficult to explain the function
of an aluminum trumpet, unless it is to augment the sound of the voice,
or to direct it and give it a location, by speaking through it. But this
would involve the psychic's free handling of the trumpet, which, it is
claimed, is not done.
Hamlin Garland, in a sitting with Mrs. S., witnessed the use of the
trumpet, for rapping, touching, and speaking, when it was placed on a
table "entirely out of reach of the psychic." " who, moreover, was tied
*^Less certain tests could be employed; such as, (i) a solid wire or willow
frame to clamp over the psychic, enclosing her body from the waist up, or to screw
down on the floor over the psychic and her chair, leaving the trumpet outside ; (2)
a cage for the trumpet; (3) water of an unknown color to be held in the mouth
during "independent" speaking; (4) the mouth sealed with surgeons' tape; (5)
small paper bags tied over the psychic's hands; etc. But they fail to reveal the
method of the production of the voices, and, besides, there are well-known ways to
circumvent them by irresponsible but ingenious secondary personalities, which de-
prive them of evidential value: the reaching-rod taken from the waist and handled
inside the cage would nullify the first test; a second concealed trumpet, or even
the "resonance" of the "controlled" trumpet, the second; a collapsible cup to hold
the water while speaking, the third ; displacement of tape, the fourth ; removal, the
fifth; etc
2* Garland : Sounds, voices, and physical disturbances in the presence of a
psychic. Psychical Rev,, i :228.
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INVESTIGATION WITH A "tRUMPET" MEDIUM 525
hand and foot to her chair with tape the ends of which were nailed to
the floor; again, in a later sitting,** while the psychic was even more
securely tied down hand and foot, the tape nailed to her chair and to
the floor, and while he held a thread tied to one of the psychic's wrists,
and Mr. Flower held a thread tied to the other wrist, so as to be able to
detect the least movement of the hands, the trumpet, which had been
placed on the floor 25 inches from her right hand, was used for speak-
ing; and again, while Mr. Garland had one hand on the psychic's left
arm, and Mr. Flower one hand on her right arm, and their other hands
were upon her head, the trumpet, which had been placed on a table 28
inches from the psychic's left hand, was levitated and deftly manipulated.'^
Mr. Garland concluded : "So far as the senses of touch and hearing go,
Mrs. Smith's [the psychic's] arms and feet had nothing whatever to do
(in the ordinary way) with the movement of the cone [trumpet].""
While Dr. Hyslop was holding both of Miss Burton's hands in his
left and grasped the large end of the trumpet with his right hand, the
trumpet was moved and jerked without any apparent means. He writes:
"I was exceedingly careful to observe the behavior of the hands. Both
times, when the trumpet was jerking. Miss Burton's hands were abso-
lutely passive during the whole performance and no motion of them
whatever was detectable, except when the trumpet was perfectly still.
... It was physically impossible for her feet to get at it, as I took care
to observe at the end of the evening^s work. ... I offer no explanation
of the facts." "
Our sitters have also taken precautions to have Mrs. Key tied to
her chair, and the trumpet out of her reach, in seances during which
"trumpet voices" spoke freely, and the general impression which they
entertain is that she does not touch the trumpet, or any of the other ob-
jects that are moved in the production of seance phenomena.
Now, it will be remembered that one cause for paucity of kymo-
graph data for studying the physical condition of the psychic during
the seance was the blank records resulting from one or both of the writ-
ing-fingers being pulled away from contact with the smoked paper on
the drum. They occurred during the seances of March 21, and March
28, and it is just possible that they throw some light upon the manner
in which the physical phenomena are produced.
'* Report of dark stances, with a non-professional psychic, for voices and the
movement of objects without contact. Psychical Rev., 2:170 ff.
^^Ibid., 170-3.
»i Ibid., p. 174.
^* Proceedings Am.S.P.R., 191 1, 5:562ff.
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526 APPENDIX D
On March 21, after Record No. 5, and before Record 6, physical
phenomena occurred : the table vibrated, a sitter remote from the psychic
was touched by the trumpet, papers on the table were moved, and the
telegraph instrument standing on the table was operated. Now, by the
4th record the pulse recorder, and by the 5th the respiration recorder,
had left the drum; by the 7th record the latter returned. The two
recorders must have been pulled independently of the other recorders,
since, while they were out of commission, the time-marker and the other
signal-recorder, which were clamped to the same standard, were still in
function. This could be done only by changing the strain upon them
by shifting the rubber tubing connecting them with the psychic. The
recorders had been relieved from much of the weight of this tubing by
supporting the spans (about six feet long) between the table and the
psychic upon the seat of a chair drawn up to the end of the table.
Change of strain would necessitate rather free movement of this tubing
in order to raise it from the support of the chair and could scarcely be
effected without the psychic leaving her chair, and, consequently, mig^t
have taken place in the following manner: After Record 3, during the
singing of the sitters, the psychic released herself and rose to her feet,
by Record 5 she had stepped slightly forward toward the trumpet and
the front of the table where the telegraph instrument was placed, by
Record 6 the phenomena had been produced and she was standing by
her chair, by Record 7 she had returned to her seat, relieving the res-
piration recorder of sufficient strain to begin recording again. This in-
terpretation may be defective in some of its details, but that it is essen-
tially correct seems to be borne out by other facts to be noticed later.
One corroborating circumstance is that on the side of the drum
which was next to the telegraph instrument when that instrument was
operated, between Records 5 and 6, there is a smudge (Fig. 15) on the
kymograph paper caused by the removal of a square inch or more of
lamp-black, such as might be made by a sleeve or other fibrous surface
moving in a downward direction. It is scarcely necessary to state that
this sheet of records was carefully guarded until it was "fixed" in a bath
of shellac immediately after the seance, and that the smudge could not
have been an accident in manipulation ; while it was on the k3rmograph
it was beyond the field of the experimenter's hands and entirely safe
from his clothing.
On March 28th, the tubing was held in a clamp fastened to the edge
of the table (as is shown in Fig. 8), but in spite of this greater security
the pulse-recorder was thrown out, after Record 2, by the tubing being
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Fig. 15.— Smudge on Kymograph Record. {Vide, p. 526.)
(Size .42 diameters.)
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INVESTIGATION WITH A '^TRUMPET" MEDIUM 527
pulled rather energetically. In view of "Katie's" statement, before the
seance closed, that it was thought that neither of the writing-fingers had
been recording during the speaking of the "independent" voices, the in-
ference suggests itself that she perhaps knew of circumstances calcu-
lated to put both recorders out of commission again. In the next seance,
April 4th, precautions were taken to clamp the tubing still more securely,
and the experimenter got permission after each record to use a weak
ruby flash-light to inspect the apparatus, thus insuring complete records.
Concerning the cooperation of the "seance personalities" more will be
said later.
Our next endeavor was the classical experiment of measuring
"psychic force." It will be remembered that Sir William Crookes,"*
in 1871, measured, in daylight, by means of self-registering spring bal-
ances, the "psychic force" exerted by the -American medium D. D.
Home, when the latter was in contact with, and when he was at a dis-
tance of three feet from, the mahogany board upon which the force was
exerted; that he represented pictorially the variation in the force ex-
erted, by means of a traveling smoked glass and a writing-finger at-
tached to the indicator of the balances. And in Turin, in the early part
of 1907, the assistants of Mosso (Foa, Herlitzka, Aggazzotti)** repeated
the experiment, in an improved form, with Eusapia Palladino. After
"John," Eusapia's "control," had been given an opportunity to press a
telegraph key in a closed box, and he did so only after forcibly remov-
ing the cover, Eusapia explaining that had the cover not been of card-
board but of woven texture he could have operated in the enclosed
space, the experimenters provided a vessel of water, covered by a rub-
ber capsule, which was placed in a box over the top of which a cloth
cover was tacked. The water was in connection with a manometer
which would transmit force exerted on the capsule to* a writing-finger
in contact with a kymograph drum, by which the amount of force, its
variability, and the length of time it was exerted, would be pictorially
represented. The capsule was coated with lamp-black to show the man-
ner of contact. "John" tore the cloth cover in exerting the "force" on
the capsule.
During four seances (April ii, i8, 25, May 2) our "seance per-
••Crookes: Researches in the Phenomena of Spiritualism. London, 1874,
14-17, 33-42.
"Podmore: Newer Spiritualism, loiff. ; Lombroso: After Death — ^What?
76 ff.; Carrington: Eusapia Palladino and Her Phenomena, 100 ff.; and Annates
des Sciences Psychiques, 1907.
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528 APPENDIX D
sonalities" were given an opportunity to exert "force" on a platform
spring-balance which was provided with an indicator that marks the
maximum position of the scale-pointer in its swing around the diaL
The platform is square, and was provided with white cardboard covers
(6 in. by 6 in.) which fit loosely yet closely over it, coated witfi lamp-
black to record the manner of contact. The covers were not seen by
any of the sitters or the psychic, were brought prepared to the seance
and were put on and taken off in the darkness, usually during the sing-
ing of the sitters.
In these four seances the program was:
( 1 ) To get psychic force exerted upon the scales by several "seance
personalities," especially "Colonel Roland," one of the r^;ular controls,
"Sir William Crookes," *• who would be especially interested in his own
experiment, and "Professor Wm. James," who has shown great interest
in all our investigation by scientific instruments.
(2) To get "International" or "Morse" "code" on the telegraph in-
strument (see Fig. 16), which records automatically on a ribbon of white
paper run through the apparatus by clock-work, and which had often
been operated, even by "Phillips," the wireless hero who went down on
the Titanic, but had failed to record "code."
(3) To have one of the controls, "Colonel Roland" or "Dr. Tru-
man," who customarily use the trumpet, speak.
The third phenomenon is not special, since it occurs at almost every
seance ; and is mentioned here to indicate that care was taken to get it
after "psychic force" should be exerted upon the scales. The second was
unique only in insistence upon "code," and was subordinated to the first.
The first seance was a blank.
In the second seance, the trumpet was thrown over but was not used
for speaking. "Katie," the control who speaks in "automatic" voice,
said in reply to the experimenter's inquiry that "Sir Wm. Crookes," ••
and "Professor Wm. James" are here. Experimenter: "We may hope
to have them, each of them, exert force on the scales, may we?**
"Katie" : "Yes, sir." The scales are manipulated, and the experimenter
asks if he may use his ruby light to read the dial. "Katie": "No force
was exerted on it." Experimenter: "Who touched the scales?" "Ka-
«« The experimenter was under the impression that this eminent scientist was
dead. Upon visiting the library (May 25, 1914), he finds that Sir Wm. Crookes
is still active and publishing scientific papers, and is now the honored president
of the Royal Society of London, of which he was elected a Fellow in 1863.
«• See footnote 35-
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INVESTIGATION WITH A ''tRUMPET" MEDIUM 529
tie": "Dr. Truman was the one who touched tfie scales. ... If they
should touch the apparatus, could you account for the Secretary's
hands ?" Experimenter : "Yes." The scales are rather violently manip-
ulated, the cover falling off upon the table. Experimenter is given
permission to use his light to read the time and the dial: 4:40, 554 ^^'
"Katie": "Dr. Hodgson exerted the force; he said he was too heavy; he
exerted too much strength ; he knocked something off the top of the ap-
paratus."
There was no operation of the telegraph instrument, and no trumpet
voice, although the tnunpet was thrown down.
The cover which had been on the scales bore only some finger-
prints of the experimenter's left second finger, on one comer, made in
locating it after it was thrown off. The force was applied after the
cover had been removed. Apprehension of the "s&mce personalities"
and disquiet of the psychic will be discussed later.
In the third and fourth seances the psychic's hands were not inclosed
in paper bags, but she was tied to her chair in the customary perfunctory
manner.
, During the third seance there was considerable jarring of the floor,
and the scales kept up an almost incessant rattle. The seance was a
blank. The trumpet was thrown down, picked up, rapped in the air, set
deftly on the table. "Katie" said it was "Colonel Roland" who manipu-
lated the trumpet, that he was sorry that he toppled it over, and that
President Booker would understand why the trumpet fell. More of ap-
prehension later. "Katie" said the "forces" were present and were try-
ing to exert force on the apparatus, but that they would have to give it
up. The trumpet was not handled with bare hands.
In the fourth seance three "personalities" exerted "force" upon the
scales, and "Colonel Roland" spoke through the trumpet. There was no
operation of the telegraph instrument. According to custom the experi-
menter got permission after each manipulation of the scales to read the
time and the dial :
(i) 4:32, sH lb. by "Colonel Roland," with his right hand.
(2) 445, i}i lb. by "Professor James," with his right hand.
(3) 4:52, 3J4 lb. by "Dr. Hodgson," with his left hand.
"Katie" told us who exerted the force and what hand was used.
She said "James" was very much pleased with his performance, and that
he exerted all the pressure he could at this time. "Colonel Roland" said
that "Dr. Hodgson" did not wait long enough to gather sufiicient force
to make his record a personal expression. For the third record there
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530 APPENDIX D
was no cover on the scale-top, but it is painted black and was prepared
by a very thin film of talcum powder which showed that the force was
exerted through a fabric of some kind, not a bare hand or fingers.
This brings us to the important consideration in this topic. Could
the psychic's body have been used directly, and in no occult way, in the
production of these physical phenomena? All the evidence we have
points that way. The contact with the cover of the scales was an ordi-
nary kind of contact, and was applied in just such a manner as a person
would use who wished to avoid leaving his mark of identification. Force
was applied to the scales four times. The record of the first contact was
lost because "Dr. Hodgson" knocked off the cover before he exerted the
force. The record of the fourth could not be preserved and reproduced,
but the talcum powder was competent to show that force was applied
through fabric. The second and third records are shown in Figure 17.
The second cover (a) shows that "Colonel Roland" carefully wiped
off the lamp-black from the comer of the cover next to the psychic, be-
fore he exerted his force ; and test with graphite showed that he did not
use a bare hand.
The third cover (b), which was exchanged for the second during the
seance, shows that "Prof. Wm. James" lock the precaution of exerting
his force through woven fabric wrapped around or held in a left hand.
(See Figure 18.) The force was applied upon the side of the platform
which on the immediately preceding cover was carefully wiped off; and
the query naturally arises as to whether he suspected that he was using
the cleaned cover. The fabric he used is of fine weave, undoubtedly of
ribbed silk or lisle-silk, such as is used in the manufacture of fine ladies'
gloves or stockings ; accurate count shows an average of 13 ribs to the
quarter inch, and of 14 threads transverse to these to the quarter inch.
Whether "Colonel Roland" used the same piece of fabric to clean off
his scale-cover, cannot with certainty be determined, although traces show
13 ribs to the quarter inch, for he may have used one just like it (e. g.,
the other glove) ; but it is certain that he used sooty fabric in handling
the trumpet through which he spoke after his experiment with the scales,
for the trumpet had been carefully polished and it now carries irregular
patches of lamp-black at grasping-distance from the small end, and it
does not show contact of the bare hand or fingers, except those accounted
for, which it is competent to do. The fabric is woven and is undoubt-
edly that used by himself in handling the scales the moment before, for
"Professor James" exerted his force on the scales after the lamp-black
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INVESTIGATION WITH A "tRUMPET" MEDIUM 531
was left on the trumpet — the only seance voice to speak later being
"Katie."
The experimenter may now take the last step, by going back to the
first seance (March 14th), of which nothing has yet been said, and thus
relate the beginning and end of his halting investigation. He has just
noted that the surface that touched the trumpet is the same surface that
touched the scales. Could this surface have been manipulated directly by
the psychic's body ? Before that first stance, the program for which in-
volved a message from beyond the veil given in a language familiar to
a departed personality but unknown to the psychic and sitters (except
the experimenter) by the use of a self-recording telegraph instrument,
the experimenter, noting the dull imprint made by the recording mechan-
ism, procured from a neighboring shop some printer^s ink, and a thin
layer of this ink was left on the key for the purpose of recording the
kind of contact. After the seance, during which the psychic was tied to
her chair as usual, and trumpet voices had spoken, printer's ink was
found (i) on the trumpet in three spots in a position convenient for
grasping it between the thumb and the first two fingers of the right hand,
and (2) on the thumb and the first two fingers of the psychic's right hand.
The telegraph instrument had been taken in charge immediately after the
seance, by the experimenter, and the remaining ink removed with ben-
zine, so that there was no opportunity for the psychic to come in contact
with the ink after the light was turned on. The most natural explanation
is that the psychic's hand was used in touching the telegraph instrument
and the trumpet.
A bit of corroboratory evidence for direct manipulation is afforded
by one of the Society's seances (January 31, 1914), at which Mrs. J. sat
as psychic. Mrs. J., it must be noted, sat a couple of times for the Sey-
bert Commission, in 1885, and was one of the few mediums to whom
that commission referred in complimentary terms.'^ In our seance, the
table, papers, telegraph instrument, were rather violently handled. Diu*-
ing one interval just after the telegraph instrument had been furiously
"operated," the medium apparently clapping her hands meanwhile to
show the independence of the phenomenon, President Booker caught her
hands which had been placed on his knees, and called loudly for a repeti-
tion of the telegraph operating, announcing to the other sitters the con-
trol of the psychic. No tapping occurred. Obviously, the medium a few
minutes earlier may have been patting some bare surface of her body.
»^ Preliminary Report. University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, 1887.
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532 APPENDIX D
perhaps her face, with one hand while producing "physical phenomena"
with the other.
The final stance (May 9th) was a blank. Although the trumpet
was thrown down a couple of times, and the table was hauled put half a
foot and shoved part of the way back, and metallic and non-metallic raps
were produced, we did not get any of the proposed phenomena :
1. Taps as rapidly as possible on the telegraph instrument in the open air.
2. Taps on same, in a locked paper box.
3. Thumb-prints on either
o. The white paper lying by the telegraph instrument, in the open air, or
b. The smoked paper lying on the scales in a closed closet.
"Katie" said that "Colonel Roland" and "Dr. Truman" with others
were present, and that shoving the table was incidental to getting force
to do what was wanted. Misuse of force will be spoken of later.
Thus far, no "physical phenomena" have been produced which can-
not be most easily explained by the direct and non-mysterious use of the
psychic's body. The rope-tying feats of the Davenport Brothers,** Eva
Fay," Kellar,** and others,*^ do not permit one to attach any importance
whatever to the t)ring of the psychic to her chair.** And present knowl-
edge of anaesthesia for automatic phenomena,** and amnesia for sonmam-
»• Podmore : Modem Spiritualism, vol. II, pp. 55 ei seq. Also, Evans : The
Spirit World Unmasked.
'•Abbott: Behind the Scenes with the Mediums, pp. 286 et seq. Also,
Truesdell : Bottom Facts, p. 238. And Maskelyne :n Pall Mall Gazette, April 18,
1885.
*o Abbott: op, cit,, 284.
*i Truesdell: op, cit,, 228 et. seq.
**A11 the noted mediums who have used rope or tape as alleged control of
the body, have met disaster in such a way as to cast discredit upon any investi-
gation in which such a control is relied upon. For an example, the Davenport
brothers were driven out of Liverpool, Huddersfield, and Leeds (England), be-
cause they refused to proceed after a certain knot was used on their wnsts, which,
according to a medical examiner, did not endanger circulation (Podmore: Mod-
ern Spiritualism, 2 : 60) . The insecurity of their bonds was revealed in Ithaca,
N. Y., by the students of Cornell University, when they flashed on lights at the
moment phenomena were occurring and the brothers were seen by the audience to
be "dodging about the stage brandishing guitars and playing tunes and waving at
the same time tall poles surmounted by phosphorescent spook pictures." (Herman:
Cosmopolitan Magasine, Quoted by Evans: The Spirit Worid Unmasked, p. 144).
^* Anaesthesia for automatic phenomena may be illustrated by the "automatic
writing" of a normal subject. The hand writes intelligently, but the subject is
conscious of neither its movement nor its communication. Miss Burton was seen
to put her anaesthetic hand up to the side of her face upon which she exclaimed
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Fig. i8. — Fabric Imprint Made by "James' " "Right Hand." {Vide, pp. 530, 539.)
(Size almost natural — .93 diameters.)
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INVESTIGATION WITH A "tRUMPET'' MEDIUM 533
bulistic phenomena ^^ makes these findings entirely compatible with the
honesty and sincerity of our psychic.
that a spirit hand was touching her face (/r. Am.S.P.R,, 4:55). Untying and
replacing bonds or stretching beyond them, and even providing and concealing
apparatus, such as reaching-rods, collapsible cups, silk gloves, phosphorescent ma-
terials, etc., to be used later in the seance, may at times be automatic phenomena,
beyond the knowledge or control of the psychic. It is likely that many alleged
exposes rest upon this foundation, doing serious injustice to the psychic. When
Mrs. £.'s control, the Hindu, manages to materialize a wire in such a way as to
make it obvious that the wire was brought into the s6ance-room secreted sin the
psychic's shirt-waist (Jr.Am.S.P,R., 4:65-68), it is entirely possible that the
control put it there during Mrs. E.'s waking state, by causing her to perform the
action automatically and thus unconsciously. Sometimes there is a residuum of
assthesia for automatic phenomena, which, however, is wholly inadequate to ac-
quaint the subject with the nature and extent of the phenomena: Miss Burton,
in her normal state, says that "when the trumpet is in use during the 'independent*
singing, whistling, and speaking, she cannot speak when addressed without an in-
terruption of the physical manifestation . . . that she is not conscious of being
used except for a feeling of constriction about her throat when the. singing and
whistling are in progress." (Jr. Am,S.P.R., 3:707). There is indeed sensibility
in the anaesthetic parts of the body used but, as Professor James says, it exists in
a secondary consciousness (Principles of Psychology, voL I, p. 203) and is not
available to the primary consciousness except by conquest through hypnosis or
other psychopathic technique.
** Amnesia for acts of the body when the subject is in a state of distraction,
emotional excitement, sleep, or trance, b well known. As Professor James says,
the amnesia may be complete for the deeper states of trance (Prin. Psych., vol.
II, 602), in which case the phenomena do not constitute a part of the subject's
memory when he is in the waking state. This fact is abundantly illustrated by
researches in hypnotism, alternating personality, and stance phenomena. B. C. A.,
in a secondary phase of personality, arises from bed, writes two letters, drops one
on the stairs while returning, hides the other in a glove-box, goes to bed and to
sleep, without contributing an item to her primary memory. (Prince: The Un-
conscious, 60-61). Professional literature is replete with celebrated cases:
F^lida X., by Azam: Hypnotisme, Double G)nscience et Alterations de la
Personnalit^. Paris, 1887.
Louis v., by Bourri et Burot: Variations de la Personnalit^. Paris, 1888.
L^onie B., by Janet: L'Automatisme Psychologique.
Mary Rejmolds, by S. Weir Mitchell : Harper's Mag., May i86p, and James :
Prin. Psych., vol. I, p. 381.
Ansel Bourne, by James: Prin. Psych., vol. I, p. 391.
Miss Beauchamp, by Prince: Dissociation of a personality.
See also:
My Life as a Dissociated Personality, by B. C. A.
Ribot: Maladies de la Personnalit^. Paris, 1885.
Dessoir: Das Doppel-Ich.
Proceedings S,P.R.
Stance phenomena offer many illustrations : Permission was given to fed the
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534 APPENDIX D
Further experimentation will have to determine whether the
''stance personalities" have characteristic rates of tapping, power to
exert force, etc., and how they compare with the psychic's normal per-
formance; whether midisguised finger-prints of the "seance personali-
ties" differ from the finger-prints of the psychic; whether any phe-
nomena can be produced at all under conditions that exclude the instru-
mentaUty of the psychic's body, such as in an inclosed space. A solu-
tion of these problems will occupy the Society in the next scries of in-
vestigations.
pulse of "Lcnorc," one of Miss Burton's "controls" ; finger and thumb marks were
later revealed on the psychic's wrist (Proceedings Am.S.P.R., 5:52). Although
the psychic's hands were held during "independent" whistling in the trumpet, her
offensive catarrhal breath was clearly detected in the trumpet (ibid., p. 47) ; and
by means of side-light the psychic was seen, during the stance, to leave her seat
and lift a table, without Dr. Milne, who was holding her right hand, being able
to detect that she had left her seat (ibid., 357). In the photographs, secured by co-
operation of the "control" "Dan," the psychic was revealed upon one occasion
out of her chair (Jr. Am. S.P.R., vol. IV, $6), and upon another, with a tam-
bourine in her teeth, ready to throw it into the air for the picture (ibid., 57).
The investigators were satisfied that Miss Burton's "waking consciousness was
honest and that her trance personality was knowingly deceiving her," (ibid., 55),
and the other trance personalities claimed as much, and, besides expressing their
regret, kept "Dan" away for some time.
Under the heading of " 'Mediumships,' or 'Possessions'," James (Principles
of Psychology, vol. I, pp. 393 flF.) says :
"Whenever the secondary state is well developed, no memory for aught that
happened during it remains after the primary consciousness comes back. The
subject during the secondary consciousness speaks, writes, or acts, as if animated
by a foreign person, and often names this foreign person and gives his history. . . .
Usually he purports to be the spirit of a dead person. . . . Mediumistic possession
in all its grades seems to form a perfectly natural special case type of alternate
personality, and the susceptibility to it in some form is by no means an uncommon
gift, in persons who have no other obvious nervous anomaly. The phenomena are
very intricate, and are only just beginning to be studied in a proper scientific
way." (p. 393).
He makes a confession of his belief that the "control" may be altogether dif-
ferent from any possible waking self, knowing facts about persons the psychic has
never seen and does not know the names of, because he is "persuaded that a serious
study of these trance-phenomena is one of the greatest needs of psychology" and
would encourage investigation, (p. 396).
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INVESTIGATION WITH A ''tRUMPET" MEDIUM 535
3. The Relation of the "Stance Personalities" to the Psychic's
Mind.
Although, on the basis of experimental results, it is premature to
discuss this question, it can scarcely be passed over in silence in this
report, since it was the primary end and starting-point in the experi-
menter's research. It was only after sitting in the Society's weekly
seances from September till March without making a step of progress in
having the seance personalities take his preliminary clairvoyance-tele-
pathic experiment with the playing-cards, that he consented to turn his
attention to the phenomena at hand. Many of the phenomena have in-
deed been of the psychical order, sitters frequently recognizing in com-
munications "splendid tests," but they have one and all been what may
be described as of a memorial or historical character, such as have con-
stantly led investigators to conflicting opinions concerning their super-
normal nature, and for this reason the experimenter intended to leave
their investigation to others who sec some hope in their enterprise, and
to adhere resolutely to communications concerning new facts so con-
trolled by himself that results can be treated by statistical analysis. The
parent Society for Psychical Research, in London, and the American
Society for Psychical Research, in New York, with other societies
abroad, are prosecuting with rare courage and skill the kind of research
to which reference has just been made, which has for its end the proof
of man's survival of death, and to them the experimenter is willing to
leave the field clear. But the whole commercialization of the occult in
this country rests upon the assumption that the "seance personalities,"
or the entranced occultists, or clairvoyants, or automatists, have super-
normal means of acquiring knowledge of new facts in our world and
are consequently competent to advise the sitter or client in important
matters. It is this supernormal capacity of acquiring knowledge of new
facts in our world that the experimenter proposed to investigate, and as
a psychologist he will be particularly interested in the psychical processes
which account for the supernormal knowledge, in case it is found, or for
belief in it by the psychic, in case it is not found. In either case the
relation of the "stance personality" to the psychic's mind will be a pri-
mary consideration.
This declaration of intention may be regarded as a forecast
of further work to be undertaken by the Society.
For the present the experimenter must content himself with report-
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536 APPENDIX D
ing a few of tbt fbeaometOL which have come to his notice and have a
bearing upon iht characteristics and incidental traits of the ''seance per-
sonalities" and their probable relation to the psychic's mind
It must be borne in mind that the psychic has not only spent her
time and energy freely, without pay, in the Society's research, but she
has upon all occasions willingly acceded to any demands which the So-
ciety, or the experimenter in particular, has made, frequently showix^
sincere interest in the acquisition of a scientific proof of the truth, what-
ever it may prove to be, which underlies the phenomena which occur in
her presence.
In all their communications the ''stance personalities" evince the
same interest and willingness to cooperate in this research. The records
of the Society contain abundant evidence of this; but a few quotations
will serve to illustrate : ''Katie," the automatic voice, a frank and sweet
child of about 12 years of age, said at the close of the stance of March
28th, after the kymographic apparatus had been used, "We are anxious
to have the truth demonstrated." During the same day, "Dr. Truman/'
a dignified "trumpet" voice, said, "We arc all very interested in this ex-
periment, as much as yourselves," and "Professor James" said, "We are
very pleased with the experiment." In the next seance (April 4th)
"Professor James" said, "I wish I might be able to speak more distinct-
ly so as to make a perfect record," and "Dr. Truman" at the close said>
"We thank you for your painstaking interest and work." Thus it was
all the way through the year's work until the measurement of "psychic
force" began.
At this point apprehension became evident; three out of the five
remaining stances were blanks ; the "seance personalities" could not get
sufficient force to carry out the program, or if they did, it was largely
misdirected. Upon the supposition that the causes of failure were occult,
the misadventures of the investigation cannot yet be explained; upon
the supposition that they were natural, a very simple explanation sug-
gests itself. A month before, the psychic removed some printer's ink
from her fingers and from her trumpet. Since then the kymograph
with its respiration and pulse curves furnished a distraction; but now,
with the scales and the telegraph instrument to the fore again, there
was a chance for imprints of fingers and traces of contact ; the "s6ance
personalities" had to have her "magnetize" (explore and test?) these
instruments; progress in this was probably made even in the blank
stances ; what phenomena could not be safely attempted were not pro-
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INVESTIGATION WITH A '^TRUMPET" MEDIUM 537
dticed; what could be, were carried out with a sole determination to
leave no finger-prints.
The evident apprehension of the "seance personalities" is ^matched
by the disquiet of the psychic (showing some community of conscious-
ness, possibly subliminal) and were it not for the evident sincerity and
honesty of the psychic, it would be the simplest explanation to consider
her direct and conscious agency the cause of the phenomena, for (i) the
phenomena were such as a disquieted psychic herself would produce, and
(2) the guarded method of their production is such as she herself would
employ.
The night preceding the seance (April nth) on which we returned
to contact phenomena, the psychic is said to have been worried and to
have slept but little ; and just before the s&mce one of the sitters, who
lives in the same house, mentioned to the experimenter that the psychic
had passed through the physical phase of mediumship long ago, imply-
ing that it would be agreeable to have the investigation pass on to other
fields, and, a few minutes later, to the experimenter's consternation,^*
she actually spoke something about finger-prints.
"Colonel Roland," a "trumpet voice" and one of the regular "con-
trols," had already exhibited his perplexity concerning the printer's ink,
in communications to President Booker at a private stance in which he
was one of the sitters, by suggesting that he (sic) use plaster of paris
or paraffin instead of so much black; and in the s&mce of April 25th,
after "he" had knocked over the trumpet, he was reported by "Katie"
as saying that President Booker will tmderstand why it fell. The im-
plication is erroneous (this fact will be used later), but it serves to re-
veal an apprehension that explains why the trumpet has been so seldom
used, why it was handled through fabric, why contact on the scales was
ako of a guarded and indirect kind, and why the telegraph instrument
was not further used.
The misuse of force would seem to amount to pretty good evidence
of sheer "stalling" on the part of the "seance personalities." During the
s&uice of April 25th, "Colonel Roland" levitated the trumpet, even
placed it on the table, with the intention, according to "Katie," of set-
ting it on the scales. The same amount of force applied to the scales
would have been to some purpose. During the stance of May 9th the
table was hauled out toward the center of the room about a foot and a
«> Finger-prints were in view as marks of identification, and were taken of all
the sitters and the psychic, before the sluice of May 2.
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538 APPENDIX D
half, and part of the way back again ; the force appfied to the telegraph
instrument, or to the scales in the closet, would have been of service.**
Whether miscarriage of experiments was due to apprehension,
which would have to rest upon lack of knowledge, or upon an inclina-
tion to frustrate rather than to aid the investigation, cannot be definitely
determined, but the weight of probability falls upon the former explana-
tion, since there are other instances of a curious limitation of knowl-
edge.*»
"Colonel Roland's" assumption (April 25th) that President Booker
knew why the trumpet fell, is a case in point. Whether the trumpet had
been handled during the preceding seance with a telescopic aluminum
grasping hook ("lazy-tongs," the familiar old standby for producing
physical phenomena at a distance from the medium in a dark seance)
which failed to take hold because of a thin film of vaseline, or with
ribbed-silk gloves to whidi the surface would be equally elusive, one
cannot be certain, but that one or the other of the cases applies is the
simplest explanation for the above assumption, stated during a seance
when the trumpet was in perfect order and when President Booker did
not in fact know why it fell.
"Professor James," although showing deep interest in the progress
of the research, has upon more than one occasion, when the experiment-
er asked him a question of psychological or technical import, most un-
naturally disappeared.
"William Stead," who was accustomed to come to encourage
President Booker in his investigations, shocked some of the sitters be-
yond measure in one seance by not being able to give the president the
name of his daughter, whom he left in charge of Julia's Bureau.
*• One is forcibly reminded of the continued failure of Eusapia's "control,"
"John King," to take advantage of his opportunities when scientific instruments
were used ; and of the classical case of substitution of one kind of phenomena for
another, which is a constant marvel to the enquirers into Zollner's grounds for
belief in the occult. Zollner (Transcendental Physics, London, 1880, pp. 97-113)
asked that (i) two solid rings of diflFerent wood be interlinked; (2) the twist in
two snail shells be reversed; (3) a knot be tied in an endless cord cut from a
bladder ; (4) a stub of a paraffin candle be put in a hollow glass ball Slade sub-
stituted: (i) placing the two rings on the jointed leg of a stand; (a) making
the snail shells appear on a slate he was holding under the table ; (3} tying knots
in a cord that had two ends, so as to suspend the endless cord from it. Zollner
was elated; his "tests" were improved!
*^The alternative of "poor conditions" is scarcely worth considering, since
the phenomena called for are of the same class as those produced, and are as
simple and easy to execute.
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INVESTIGATION WITH A ''tRUMPET" MEDIUM 539
Near the end of the stance of March 28th, "Katie," speaking ap-
parently for "Dr. Hodgson" and "Professor James," who had been
watching the instruments, said they thought that neither of the writing-
fingers had recorded during the independent speaking, whereas the res-
piration records were complete. On May 2d, she reported that "Pro-
fessor James" had used his right hand in exerting force on the scales,
whereas the impression on the lamp-black indicates a small left hand,
fingers folded in and thumb extending slightly to the right. (See Fig-
ure 18.) And during the seance of April i8th, "she"said that "Sir
William Crookes" was present, so "Dr. Truman" informed her, whereas
the noted scientist is still among the living.
The telegraph instrument has given us inexpert tapping, but no
code. The operating, said to have been done by "Phillips," the wireless
operator who went down on the Titanic, seems to show that he loses his
knowledge of telegraphy when he becomes a "seance personality."
This limitation of knowledge and astounding stupidity of "trance
personalities" is, of course, familiar to readers of reports of investiga-
tions in the proceedings of the two societies for psychical research, and
elsewhere ; and is explained, according to investigators, by the fact that
the discamate "personality" on his side must enter an abnormal state,
as the "psychic" does on this side, in order to communicate at all, —
even then perhaps only through the psychic's usual "control," — ^and that
much practice is needed in order to purge these conmiimications of in-
tellectual chaos.*® But this tremendous limitation is not recognized by
"sitters" who frequent seances ; is not fully recognized, I suspect, in our
own Society.
** Sir Oliver Lodge records in his "Survival of Man" (p. 292) an interesting
instance of mental blindness on the part of the Myers control, communicating
through Mrs. Thompson, at Edgbaston, February 19, 1901. Lodge had just sug-
gested: "You remember the S. P. R." Control: "Do not think that I have for-
gotten. But I have. I have forgotten just now. Let me think. . . . They tell me
it was my best love, that society. They will help me. ... I am going to talk to
you clearly and very distinctly in April. I do not know my mother's name now."
Professor Hyslop writes that he has all but abandoned the theory of com-
munication that involves an abnormal or trance state in the discamate personality;
he is inclined to think that "the pictographic process of communication and the
half mechanical conditions for letting messages through may account for all the
appearances of trance or dream state in the communicator." This view he devel-
oped in the Proceedings Am.S.P.R., 1912, vol. VI (vide, ch. II, Difficulties of
communicating, pp. 48 ff.).
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540 APPENDIX D
Is it possible that the "seance personalities" are limited in their
knowledge to the content of the psychic's mind?**
It was the purpose of the experimenter to discuss at the last s&mce
(May 9th) somewhat in detail with the "tnmipet voices" the principal
results of his investigation, and get their explanations, and their sugges-
tions for further work. But the "trumpet voices" did not come, and
^*It is well known that ''messages" delivered in trance in automatic voice
or automatic writing, and that auditory and visual hallucinations (voices and vis-
ions) perceived by a 'sensitive' often reproduce experience, sometimes much elab-
orated, which the subject can at times identify, but also which he often cannot
recognize for the reason that it has been forgotten, or was a so-called unconscious
perception, or belonged to a secondary state of consciousness. Miss X. looks across
the room and tries vainly to read the title of a strange book lying on her table;
she turns to her writing and sees on the blank paper 'The Valley of the Lilies,"
which proves to be the title of the book never seen before, but no doubt sublim-
inally read (Myers: Human Personality, voL I, pp. 587-8). She looks through a
window and reads on the pane a newspaper notice of the death of a friend; she
finds :he notice in a paper containing some items she remembers having read;
again, a reproduction of a subliminal impression. Miss B. looks into a crystal and
sees a wood, a lake, and men, and witnesses a complex murder scene; the vision
was a correct representation of a scene in one of Marie Corelli's novels which she
had once read but forgotten (Prince: The Unconscious, p. 42). B. C. A., whose
amnesia for her conduct in a secondary phase of personality, in rising, going down
sUirs, writing two letters, dropping one on the stairs when returning, and hiding
the other in a glove-box, has been noticed, looked into a crystal and witnessed the
whole scene; in hypnosis the experience was remembered and even the thoughts
which accompanied each act were described; the vision was a reproduction of ex-
perience belonging to a secondary phase of personality (Prince: op, cit,, 60-1).
Miss C, in hypnotic trance, narrated highly elaborated fabrications of her forgotten
experience; on one occasion the spirit of a fictitious person, purporting to have
lived in the time of Richard II., gave many intimate details about the Earl and
Countess of Salisbury, and other personages of the time ; the genealogical data were
found to be correct, although they were such as could be ascertained only through
critical historical research. In her normal state Miss C. could not imagine how
she could have obtained this knowledge, for she was in entire ignorance of it;
through automatic writing it was discovered that the facts were to be found in a
book called "The Countes? Maud," by E. Holt, which had been read by an aunt,
14 years previously, to Miss C. when she was about 11 years of age. (Journal S.P.
R., July 1906; August 191 1 ; also Prince: Op. cit., 19-20). One of Prince's sub-
jects, "while in a condition of considerable stress of mind owing to the recurrence
of the anniversary of her wedding day, had a vision of her deceased husband, who
addressed to her a certain consoling message. It afterwards transpired that this
message was an actual reproduction of the words of a friend quoted to her in the
course of a conversation some months previously, as the words of her own husband
to herself just before his death. In this vision the words were put into the mouth
of another person, the subject's deceased husband, and were actually heard as an
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INVESTIGATION WITH A "TRUMPET'^ MEDIUM 541
discussion had to be undertaken with "Katie." She assured the experi-
menter that he has been right all along in his assumption that "Dr. Tru-
man" and "Colonel Roland" have known all that he has been doing in
the conduct of his investigation, and that they know his results; she
said that they conmiend his effort ; and that they will be delighted if the
proposed report is made to the Am. S. P. R., and the projected thorough
investigation with the psychic is undertaken next year.
hallucination." (Prince: Op, cit., 40). The messages received in automatic script
through Mrs. Verrall are often found to be quotations from passages in English,
Latin, and Greek, which she has read but forgotten (Proceedings S. P. R., October
1906, ch. 12). "Subconscious fabrication" seems a reasonable explanation for the
life-histories given by controls who fail to prove their identity. Is it not likely that
Mrs. Piper's Phinuit is an etymological descendant of "Finne," the control of a
Mr. Cooke before whom Mrs. Piper first went into trance? (Vide, Podmore:
Naturalisation of the Supernatural, 307 flF.). Was not Mrs. "Smcad's" "Harrison
Clarke/' who said he fought at Shiloh in the 125th N. Y. Regiment, and who
later confessed that Clarke was not his real name and explained that he deserted
the N. Y. Regiment and joined one that actually appeared at Shiloh but refused
to give further particulars, a psychic fabrication? {Vide, Hyslop: Apparent sub-
conscious fabrication. Journal of Abnormal Psych., 1906, i :2o6ff.).
Morton Prince, who has much experience with spontaneous and induced
states of secondary consciousness, says:
The reproduction of subconscious perceptions and forgotten knowledge in
dreams, visions, hypnosis, trance states, by automatic writing, etc., is interesting
apart from the theory of memory. Facts of this kind oflFer a rational interpreta-
tion of many well-authenticated phenomena exploited in spiritualistic literature.
Much of the surprising information given by planchette, table rapping, and similar
devices commonly employed by mediums, depends upon the translation of for-
gotten dormant experiences into manifestations of this sort." (Prince: The Un-
conscious, 59).
When "Annette" gives the spirit message through Mrs. Holland's automatic
script, "Tell her this comes from the friend who loved cradles and cradled things,"
how can one be sure that it is not a slightly elaborated reproduction of the words
of a letter received 20 years previously by the automatist from a friend of Annette's
quoting from the latter's will: "Because I love cradles and cradled things"?
(Proceedings S,P,R., 1908, 21:288-9; also, Prince: op. cit., 22).
To prove that "messages" are not reproductions,. simple or elaborated, of ex-
perience in some phase of the psychic's personality, the Society is evidently under
the necessity of controlling the facts to be reproduced in some such way as they
are controlled in the experimenter's card experiment. Statistical analysis would be
capable of determining whether any of the "s^nce personalities" are independent
of the psychic's mind, and would throw immediate light on the processes employed
in an unrecognized means of acquiring knowledge. Until this step is taken, all
"spirit messages" are likely to be regarded by the world at large as limited to the
class of "messages" already known to be reproductions or elaborations of the psy-
chic's own experience.
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542 APPENDIX D
The experimenter was and is very grateful for this assurance, for
he was beginning to feel that his frank assumption of full knowledge
of the course of investigation, on the part of the psychic's "controls,"
was not justified All now understand each other; everything has been
open and above-board between the experimenter and the "controls."
Their courage and "fanaticism for truth" are equal to the experimenter's,
for although the results so far seem to show that the "seance personali-
ties" speak with the psychic's vocal organs, that they effect physical phe-
nomena with her hands, and that their knowledge is possibly limited to the
contents of her mind, they desire that the experimenter shall put this
evidence on record, and shall follow it up with thorough-going investi-
gation next year to establish fully and clearly the exact truth.
The implications in this report the experimenter believes to be un-
avoidable upon the basis of the facts in his hands at the present time.
He remains open-minded, however, and will not ignore good evidence
for the occult phenomena of "independent" voices, levitation, personali-
ties ; indeed, he is even anxious for the sake of the interest of his friends
in the Society, to seek and find such evidence. If there are such occult
phenomena, he believes the present program of the Society's experi-
mental section, involving the use of scientific instruments, is adequate
to place them incontestably before the eyes of science.
The experimenter has already expressed his high respect for the
psychic, and he wishes to attest the sincerity of the sitters in the So-
ciety's seances, their evident high motives in contributing time and
money to an investigation which in its nature must at times have grown
tiresome, and their confidence in the experimenter who was frankly sail-
ing an unsounded sea. He commends their harmony and orderliness,
which insured the psychic from the dangers of pocket flash-lights and of
"grabbing" in the dark. He trusts that they, and the other members of
the Society, appreciate the seriousness of the import of the experimental
results so far obtained, and he hopes that they will give unreserved sup-
port to the proposed thorough-going scientific investigation next year in
order that this import may be either revised or verified according to the
facts found.
Perhaps a paragraph on the principles of interpretation of phe-
nomena should be offered here for the consideration of sitters who have
not had formal scientific training. This Society is a research society,
and its existence can only be justified by the use of the methods of in-
vestigation conmion to all research — scientific methods.*® These involve
»o The scientific method ordinarily involves the use of instruments to extend
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INVESTIGATION WITH A "tRUMPET'' MEDIUM 543
(i) experiments for the production of simple or selected facts; (2)
interpretation of causes of these facts according to the "law of parsi-
mony"; (3) the testing of the interpretation by new experiments; and
so on. Now, interpretation of the causes which produce our facts must,
in the beginning, be thoroughly natural, recognized everywhere in the
scientific world ; only when we get phenomena that cannot be so inter-
preted are we warranted in revising the limited interpretation. We can-
not start out with the assumption that there are "independent" voices,
levitation, personalities; we must start with the assumption that these
phenomena are only apparently independent, if we are ever to get a
proof that they are actually independent, and if we court the attention
of the scientific world for our psychical research.**
The experimenter believes that the scientific man will read with
app oval the Society's first report. He cannot but appreciate the fact
the normal powers of observation, which are notoriously fallible under the condi-
tions of dark stances, that not only exclude vision but offer sound stimuli of
minimal intensity and facility for hallucination of touch perception, to say nothing
of wearying the attention by long sittings and misdirecting it by the production of
undetermined phenomena. A little reflection will suffice to recognize the value of
the use of scientific instruments to man in his effort to understand the forces about
him and to subject them to his control. Sunlight appears to be homogeneous; the
prism spreads it out into the spectrum colors for each of which the wave length
and frequency have been measured. The earth looks flat ; its shadow on the moon,
the telescopic view of a sailing vessel at sea, and circumnavigation, show it to be
spherical. The microscope reveals the malarial parasite in the blood, and also in
the stomach-walls of the anopheles mosquito responsible for the patient's infection,
dispelling the superstition that inhalation of the miasma of the swamp is the cause
of the fever. The chronoscope, by measuring time in thousandths of a second,
enables us to learn that a nervous "current'' is propagated at a rate less than 200
feet a second, and that it cannot be of the nature of an electric current or of light,
which travels 186,000 miles a second, or of sound that travels 1,100 feet a second.
Scientific instruments have made possible our special sciences of astronomy, chem-
istry, physics, biology, medicine, physiology, psychology, etc., and have made our
world more intelligible and a safer and a more comfortable place in which to live.
Science in general is the organization of our observations thus facilitated, and may
be regarded as an extension of our common sense, analogous to the steamship and
steel rails as extensions of our power of locomotion, or to the telegraph and the
telephone as extensions of our power of communication.
'^ This demand arising from the "law of parsimony" is that our explana-
tions or interpretations, besides being simple, must be consistent with known
causes. It is only upon the leverage of this provision that proof of new phenom-
ena can be forced into scientific recognition. The decisiveness with which it is
established corresponds to the severity of the criticism it has successfully with-
stood.
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544 APPENDIX D
that the Society is proceeding scienHfically, and the experimenter pre-
dicts that he will be waiting with interest for the Sodet/s second rqwrt.
Having thus obtained his attention and respect, all the Society needs to
do to prove the existence of unusual or supernormal causes is to show
by records of properly controlled scientific instruments that they occur,
and occur r^^ularly under definite conditions.
It should be definitely recorded, for the Society and the world,
that the obligation of producing phenomena which cannot possibly be
explained by a direct and a not unfamiliar use of the psychic's body and
mind rests upon the "seance personalities/' so long as the Society,
through its officers, its investigation committee, its experimenter, and its
psychic, is providing stance conditions under which any i^enomena at
all take place.
The experimenter wishes to express especial obligations to the presi-
dent for many hours' assistance in this and related psychical research,
to the secretary, for faithful service in recording his dictations during
the Society's seances, and to the treasurer for valuable assistance in the
acquisition and care of apparatus used in our laboratory.
Respectfully submitted. May 28th, 1914.
John E. Coovesl,
Experimenter.
The Society is grateful to the experimenter for his careful work
and wishes to commend the scientific method of investigation for its fu-
ture work. It wishes to emphasize the facts, however, that Dr. Coover
does not offer his explanations as final, and that some of the members
of the investigation committee candidly differ with them on the basis of
the present data, as will be pointed out below. They are glad to have
his explanations expressed as they are in order that the world of ag-
nostics can see that naturalistic interpretations are being considered from
the very beginning of the Society's work ; our proof, then, for unusual
causes of stance phenomena cannot fail to be valid.
In taking up seriatim the points upon which some members differ
with the explanations offered in the foregoing report, the Society wishes
to put on record alternative explanations which these members believe
to be equally compatible with the data.
(i) The "independent" voices may, indeed, be produced by the use
of the psychic's vocal organs, necessitating a sympathetic activity in her
throat ; but the manner may be yet undiscovered. An independent vocal
apparatus may be built up from hers and materialized to operate at a
distance from the psychic's. The vocal organs of the psychic may even
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INVESTIGATION WITH A "TRUMPET" MEDIUM 545
produce some sound, but on this explanation of the production of inde-
pendent voices it would be negligible. Some evidence to support this
theory was quoted by the experimenter: The physicians felt with their
hands a throat two feet distant from Miss Burton's throat ; '^ and while
examining the psychic's throat, during independent singing and whis-
tling, they found slight sympathetic activity, but could hear no sound
at her mouth.*' The Report stated also that these phenomena occurred
when a handkerchief was botmd over her mouth. With Mrs. Blake the
sound came from the trumpet in broad daylight, when only her fingers
touched it.** It could scarcely be produced by her vocal organs without
detection, even assuming that the trumpet acts as a resonator.
(2) The trumpet may be handled by a materialized hand cast in the
astral mold of the psychic's arm; this independent hand may be inti-
mately connected with the psychic's hand in that the psycliic's energy is
used for its movement; it may be becomingly draped. The writing-
fingers on the apparatus might have been pulled out of place by this
hand manipulating from the psychic's hand; the lamp-black might have
been removed by the touch of the drapery, the ink would naturally be
carried from the telegraph instrument, and the lamp-black from the
scale-cover, to the trumpet, and finally the ink might be left on the
psychic's fingers in the process of dematerialization. Some evidence
quoted by the experimenter supports this explanation: A noted investi-
gator saw the materialized hand of a "control" six feet away from the
left hand of our psychic, Mrs. Key ; " and Sir Oliver Lodge and others
felt the patting, pulling, and pushing of a hand that could not possibly
have been Eusapia's. Besides, investigators, Hamlin Garland and Flower,
among others, have, as quoted by the experimenter, found the bonds of
their psychic, Mrs. S., intact after the manipulation of objects, including
the trumpet, which were known from measurement to be beyond her
reach.
(3) Blank seances and the alleged misuse of force are recognized
by all to be frequent, but they need not be due to ignorance on the part
of the "seance personalities"; if our alternatives suggested above are
reasonable explanations of the data at hand, there must be many complex
conditions to be obtained for successful phenomena, about which as yet
we know nothing or next to nothing. These not being under our con-
s' Vide, p. 507, supra.
*» Vide, p. 520, supra.
*♦ Vide, p. 506, supra.
»■ Vide, p. 504, supra.
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546 APPENDIX D
trol, it is more or less accidental when they are fulfiUed. The experi-
menter himself has quoted a marked case of "mental blindness" occur-
ring in Sir Oliver Lodge's investigations,^* which excuses any errors or
limitation in knowledge on the part of our "seance personalities."
(4) The apprehension which the experimenter sees may be in part
real, due to the psychic's learning of phenomena that do not seem to Se
regular and which she does not understand, and in part fancied, due to
chance sequence of phenomena. There may be a reason which we do
not yet understand why the scale-covers were knocked off or cleaned off
or pressed upon through fabric. As long as we do not more fully imd :r-
stand the conditions necessary for the production of physical |rfienom-
ena, the door must be left open for the alternative of this unknown rea-
son. The sequence of events in this case would only appear to show a
determination to leave no traces of contact.
(5) The Society is aware of the phenomena of so-called "secondary
personalities" reported by eminent medical practitioners, and it thinks
that the hypothesis of spirit helpers and spirit possession *^ furnishes a
rational explanation of the facts of the reproduction of the subject's for-
gotten or subconscious experience.
With these alternative explanations on record, the Society com-
mends the program suggested by the experimenter for its next series of
investigations as being likely to throw needed light upon the questions
specifically raised in this report.
Emma L. Hume, Secretary,
3968 Sacramento Street,
San Francisco, California.
The projected experimentation did not take place the following
year, owing partly to the fact that the psychic was not in her usual
health and partly to another fact which may have contributed to the first
— the opposition of certain professionally interested friends who pro-
fessed to suspect that the investigation was a projected expose the pub-
lication of which was intended to win notoriety or laurels for the ex-
perimenter. The psychic, however, had occasion to reaUze the impor-
tance of the work in hand and the great service to humanity she could
»« Footnote 48, p. 539, supra.
•^ Did not the noted English psychologist, W. M'Dougall (The case of Sally
Beauchamp. Proceedings S.P.'R., 1905-7, 19:430), consider "Sally," whom Prince
(Dissociation of a Personality) suppressed as an alternating personality, to be a
possessing spirit?
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INVESTIGATION WITH A "tRUMPET" MEDIUM 547
render in cooperating with the Society in carrying out the proposed pro-
gram, for, if she were herself in doubt on account of some of the unex-
pected findings of the preliminary report, she was given reassurance by
the highest authority on psychical research in America in the following
letter:
THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE FOR SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH
SECTION B
AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR PSYCHICAL RESEARCH
NEW YORK
Bl» WE8T 149th 8TREKT
Movesber 22d. 1914.
Dear *Mr6. Key':
I have just read and sent to press the report of the Cali-
fornia Society for Psychical Research and I write to say that I
have been sach interested in it as a good piece of work. It Hi
not result in as positive proof as the ezperisenters desired for
spiritistic agencies, but that does not derogate froB its
scientific character and I shall value the paper very much.
The evidence that your organiSB was affected in the phenosena
observed does not in the least silitate against spiritistic in-
fluences. It only liBits the evidence for such influences. I
•yself have held and taught for years that the organism and sub-
consciousness of the aediuB is bound to modify the results and
to be a coloring factor in the genuine as well as in other phe-
nomena. In all my work I have large amounts of non-evidential
incidents and statements as well as muscular movements that the
skeptic can refer to subconscious action. That is an inevitable
event in the work and it will not help the spiritistic interpre-
tation to deny it. I have seen many cases in which the phenomena
of the subject were worthless as evidence, but the moment I took
the subject to another psychic and had the necessary cross-
references it completely altered the case. What we had to treat
as subconscious in the subject, without this confirmation, be-
came evidential when obtained through another psychic. Witness
the cases, Thompson-Gifford. DeCamp-Stockton and Rogers-Abbott.
In each taken alone I did not have the evidence that the alleged
person was present and influencing the subject's experiences,
but the moment I got the same facts through another psychic who
knew nothing of them, the spiritistic theory became as legiti-
mate as any other. It is the same with actions that are not
evidential. I have just completed a series of experiments where
this is true. We have to assume that the organism and subcon-
sciousness of the medium will always be a factor in the genuine
phenomena. What we want is indubitable evidence and later we
can extend the explanatory power of spiritistic influences.
Very sincerely.
(Signed) James H. flyslop.
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548 APPENDIX D
It is probable, therefore, that the responsibility for the temporary
interruption in the investigation rests wholly upon the shoulders of the
psychic's misguided advisers, who at one time charge that scientific men
will pay no attention to the phenomena of spiritualism and at another
when a most favorable opportimity is offered strongly oppose the scien-
^tific study of the phenomena, and who seem to have had less faith in the
scientific verification of the phenomena than had the principal members
of the investigation committee who bravely and stoutly supported the
program.
The Society, consequently, has had to confine its attention to the
investigation of such subordinate phenomena as are presented from time
to time, hopefully awaiting an opportunity to carry out its complete
program.
This opportunity may reasonably be expected to present itself soon,
for the longer it is voluntarily delayed by those who can produce the
phenomena, the stronger will the presumption grow that commercially
interested psychics are willing to have their spiritualistic clientele believe
in phenomena that they themselves fear to have properly inspected. And
even were a sort of mediums' protective association to make it a com-
mon cause to withhold the awaited opportunity the presumption would
apply so particularly to the leaders of that organization that the more
prominent spiritualists, men of influence and property, who support the
program and regret the delay, would no doubt find a way of overcoming
the opposition.
Two important factors in the present situation which should appeal
favorably to psychics may be pointed out :
(i) At the beginning of its existence the Society was unknown
and, although men of prominence in both science and business were
connected with it, was not in a position to confer honor through cooper-
ation upon a prominent psychic. The hope of the Society for authorita-
tive recognition was fulfilled upon the publication of its preliminary
report : It is now recognized by the American Society for Psychical Re-
search as an independent affiliated society whose reports of scientific
work are acceptable for publication in the American Proceedings. The
honor of cooperating with a society of recognized scientific standing
awaits the psychic who places herself at the disposal of the California
Psychical Research Society.
(2) The program of the Society has been approved, with and with-
out qualification, by authorities in psychical research at home and abroad.
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INVESTIGATION WITH A "tRUMPET" MEDIUM 549
In correspondence with the experimenter, consequent upon the publica-
tion of the Society's Report, Sir Oliver Lodge says:
Reflex or sympathetic actions on the part of Eusapiar's organization were a
frequent experience at times when the control was quite perfect. In so far as
"physical phenomena" are extensions of physiological processes this is only natural,
though manifestly it may be regarded as Auspicious. Every kind of suspicion was
felt and guarded against: indeed, that was the object of the sitters. But I quite
agree that physiological experiments and apparatus ought to be used in a judici9us
manner at the appropriate time, and that the results so obtained may ultimately be
instructive.
Dr. James H. Hyslop wrote:
Your methods of experiment I thoroughly agree with. I should have em-
ployed similar ones if I had had the laboratory and apparatus, but I have not had
them and I have had to confine my work to what could be done without apparatus.
. . . For unifying the world the laboratory method is indispensable. I wish we had
a laboratory for the work in that direction.
Mr. Hereward Carrington of New York, wrote:
As to the Report : I think it is very excellent in the main, and is exactly the
sort of thing I had hoped to do, if we get our laboratory here going. I think
youVe done a good piece of work, and one which ought to please and interest the
scientific man. [From reported evidence apart from the laboratory experiments]
I am even yet inclined to believe . . . that she [the psychic] has produced some
genuine manifestations. At the same time, I think your Report is impressive. If
she is willing to continue giving her services . . . this is surely a good sign of her
conscious honesty, at least, which you seem to accept.
. . . The main problem [is] ... whether the physical phenomena were
produced supernormally or no. . . . Your program sounds good, and I only hope
you can follow it out.
The importance of the relation of the "seance personalities" to the
psychic's mind is recognized everywhere in psychical research, and the
part of the program which provides for the development of a sure meth-
od of proving the independence of the "seance personality,*' has received
hearty indorsement.
Under these conditions it is unlikely that any group of interested
persons would risk for long a concerted action to prevent the carrying
out of the Society's program, — an effort patently calculated to defeat the
purposes and blast the hope of all those who are endeavoring to place
the phenomena of spiritualism upon a basis as firm as the facts of sci-
ence, and equally calculated to block the distint crested pursuit of truth.
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APPENDIX R
CATALOGUE OF LITERATURE IN THE LIBRARY OF
LELAND STANFORD JUNIOR UNIVERSITY
RELATING DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY
TO PSYCHICAL RESEARCH.
BOOKS.
(The bodes indicated by an asterisk (*) were purchased upon a special fund
which has been supplied, from year to year, by Mr. Thomas Welton Stanford, of
Melbourne, Australia.)
Abbott, David Phelps: Behind the scenes with mediums, ad ed. Chicago^ 1908.
The marvellous creations of Joseffy. Chicago, 1908*
Abbott, Edwin A: Philomythus; an antidote adjunct credulity, ad ed.
London, 1891.
Abbott G. F.: Macedonian folk-lore; appendices in modem Greek: last chapter
in modem Greek with English translation on opposite page.
Cambridge, 1903.
Abott, Orrin: The Davenport brothers; their history, travels, and manifestations.
New York, 1864.*
Abelson, J. : Jewish mysticism. London, 1913.*
Aber, Mrs. Mary Rose AUing: Souls. Chicago, 1893.
Abercrombie, John: Inquiries concerning the intellectual powers and the investi-
gation of trath; with additions and explanations to adapt the work to the
use of schook and academies. Boston, 1844.
Abhedananda, Swami: Vedanta philosophy; how to be a Yogi. New Yoric, 190a.
Vedanta philosophy; three lectures on reincarnation. New York, 1899.
Vedanta philosophy; three lectures on spiritual unfoldment
New York, 1901.
Abraham, Karl: Traum und Mythus. Leipzig, 1909.
Abrams, Albert : Man and his poisons. New York, 1906.
Abu Bakr ibn al-Tufail, Abu Jafar> al-Ishbili: The improvement of human
reason. London, lycS*
Acadtoie des Sciences, Paris: Report of the experiments on animal magnetism
made by a conmiittee of the Medical section of the French Royal Academy
of Sciences; read at the meetings of the aist and aSth of June, 1831.
Edinburgh, 1833.*
Acevedo, M. Otero. (See Otero.)
Adams, John S. : Review of the conclusion of Rev. Charles Beecher, referring
the manifestations of the present time to the agency of evil spirits.
New Yoric, 1853.*
Adams, William Henry Davenport: Witch, warlock, and magician; historical
sketches of magic and witchcraft in England and Scotland. London, 1889.*
Adelung, Johann Christoph: Geschichte der menschlichen Narrhdt 4 vols.
Leipzig, 1785-1787.*
An adventure; with appendix and maps. London, 1913.*
551
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552 APPENDIX E
Agrippa von Ncttesheim, Heinrich Cornelius : Dc inccrtitudine et vanitatc omnium
scientarium. Frankfurt, 1863.
De occulta philosophia ; libri tres. Coloniae, 1533.
Aguirre de Venero, Mariano: A new system of physiognomy. New York, 1865*
Airy, George Biddell: On the algebraical and numerical theory of errors of ob-
servations. London, 186 1.
Aksakov, Aleksandr Nikolaevich: Animisme et spiritisme. Paris, 1895.*
Vorlaufer des Spiritismus. Leipzig, 1898^*
Alber, Z. : De Tillusion ; son m6canisme psycho-social. Paris, 1909.*
Albertus de Saxonia: Questiones subtilissime Albcrti de Saxonia in libros de
celo et mundo. Venetys, 1520.*
Albinus, Theophilus (Pseud.). (See Weise, J. M.)
Alden, Henry Mills: A study of death. New York, 1895.
Alderson, John: On apparitions. Hull. 18 — .♦
Alexandre-Bisson, Juliette: Les ph^nomenes dits de materialisation. Paris, 1914.*
Alger, William R.: A critical history of the doctrine of a future life; with a
complete bibliography of the subject. Philadelphia, 1864.
Almanach proph^tique, pittoresque, et utile. Paris, 1856.*
Ames, Edward Scribner: The psychology of religious experience. Boston, 1910.
Amryce, C. : Pantheism, the light and hope of modem reason. 1898.
Anderson, J. H. : ' Professor Anderson's expose of spirit rappings.
New York, 1853.*
Andree, Richard: Die Flutsagen. Braunschweig, 1891.
Andrews, James Bruyn (Ed.) : Contes ligures, traditions dc la Riviere.
Paris, 1892.
Anglemont, Arthur, Comte de: El hipnotismo, el magnetismo y la mediumnidad
scientificamente demostrados. Barcelona, 1895.
Anhorn von Hartwiss, Bartholomaeus : Magiologia. Basel, 1674.
Antiquity unveiled. (See Roberts, J. M.) Philadelphia, 1892.
Armstrong, P. A.: The Piasa; or, the devil among the Indians. Morris, 111., 1887.
Arnold, Sir Edwin: Death— and afterwards. (Reprinted from the Fortnightly
Review.) 15th ed. London. 1907.*
Asbjornsen, Peter Christian and Moe, Jorgen : Norske Folke-Eventyr.
Christiania, 1866.
Ash, Edwin Lancelot: Mind and health; the mental factor and suggestion in
treatment, with special reference to neurasthenia and other common nervous
disorders. New York, 1910.
Ashburner, John: Notes and studies in the philosophy of animal magnetism and
spiritualism. London, 1867.*
The Athenian Oracle; being an entire collection of all the valuable questions and
answers in the old Athenian mercuries. London, 1703.*
Athius, G. (Pseud.). (See Azzi, Gaetano.)
Atkinson, Henry George and Martineau, Harriet: Letters on the laws of man's
nature and development. Boston, 1851.*
Aubrey, John: Miscellanies upon various subjects. London, 1857.*
Augier, Adolphe Qovis: Les grandes victimes de rhyst6rie. Paris, 1907*
Aussfuhrlicher Bericht von der Newen Propheten. . . . gestellet durch das pre-
digampt der Christlichen Gemein zu Liibcck, Hamburg, und Luneburg.
Lubeck, 1634.
Ave-Lallemant, Friedrich Christian: Der Magnetismus mit seinen mystischen
Verirrungcn. Leipzig, i88i.*
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BOOKS IN PSYCHICAL RESEARCH LIBRARY 553
Aveling, Francis: On the consciousness of the universal and the individual.
London, 1912.
Axtell, Harold L. : The deification of abstract ideas in Roman literature and
inscriptions. Chicago, 1907.
Azam, Eugene: Hypnotisme; double conscience et alterations de la personnalitc.
Paris, 1887.
Azzi, Gaetano: Idea vera dello spiritismo; nozioni preliminari alio studio della
dottrina spiritica ed alia conoscenza del mondo invisibile, ricavate dai mi-
gliori trattati di psicologia e di filosofia spiritualista, per cura di G. Athius
(Pseud.). Torino, 1895.*
In difesa della spiritismo; riposte agli . . . membri della societa scientifico
letteraria "Secolo Nuovo" di Genova che . . . proclamarono superstizione ed
aberrazione lo spiritismo, raccolte e pubblicate per cura di Gaetano Azzi.
Alba, 19— (?).*
Babbitt, Edwin Dwight: Religion as revealed by the material and spiritual uni-
verse. New York, 1881.*
Bahnsch, Friedrich : Tristan-Studien. Danzig, 1885.
Bain. Alexander: Mind and body; the theories of their relation. New York, 1892.
On the study of character, including an estimate of phrenology.
London, i86i.*
Bajenoff: La suggestion et ses limites, par le professeur Bajenoff, et le docteur
Ossipoff. Paris, 1911.
Ballet, Gilbert: Le language interieur et les diverses formes de Tasphasie.
Paris, 1888.
' Trait6 de pathologic mentale. Paris, 1903.
Baraduc, Hippolyte: Les vibrations de la vitalit6 humaine. Paris, 1904.*
Baragnon, Pierre Paul: fitude du magn^tisme animal. Paris, 1853.*
Barety, A. : Magnetisme animal, ctudi6 sous le nom de force rayonnante.
Paris, 1887.*
Baring-Gould, Sabine : Curious myths of the middle ages. Boston, 1889.
Origin and development of religious belief. London, 1878.
Barkas, Thomas P.: Outlines of ten years' investigations into the phenomena of
modem spiritualism. London, 1862.*
Barker, Elsa : Letters from a living dead man, written down by Elsa Barker.
London, 1914.*
Barr, Martin W. : Mental defectives, their history, treatment, and training.
Philadelphia, 1904.
Barrett, William Fletcher: Psychical research. London, I9ii.*
Swedenborg. London, 1912.*
Barth, Henri: Du sommeil non naturel. Paris, i886.*
Bartholomaeus, Angelicus : Mediaeval lore. Edited by R. Steele. London, 1893.
Barzini, Luigi: Nel mondo dei misteri con Euspasa Paladino preceduto da uno
studio di C. Lombroso. Milano, 1907.*
Bassett, Ren6 (Trans.) : Contes populaires berberes. Paris, 1887.
Bastian, Adolf Philipp Wilhelm: Vorgeschichtliche Schopfungslieder in ihren
ethnischen Elementargedanken. Berlin, 1893.
Zur naturwissenschaftlichcn Behandlungsweise der Psychologic durch und
fiir die Volkerkunde. Berlin, 1883.
Bastian, Henry C. : The brain as an organ of mind. New York, 1896.
Bates, Emily Katharine : Psychical science and Christianity. London, 1909.*
Baudi di Vesme, Cesare: Geschichte des Spiritismus. Dbersetzung von Feilgen-
hauer. Leipzig, 189a*
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554 APPENDIX E
Baudi di Vesme, Cesare: Storia dello spiritismo. Torino, 1896.*
Bawden, Henry Heath : A study of lapses. New York, 1900.
Baxter, Robert: Narrative of facts, characterizing the supernatural manifesta-
tions in members of Mr. Irving^s congregation. London, 1933.
Beaumont, Sir John: Gleanings of antiquities. London, 1724.*
Beaunis, Henri fitienne: Recherches exp^rimentales sur les conditions de Tacti-
vit6 c6r6brale. Paris. 1884.*
Lc sonmambulisme provoquc. Paris, 1887.*
Bebel, Heinrich: Proverbia germanica. Leiden, 1879.
Bechstein, Ludwig: Die Sagen des Rhongebirges und des Grabfeldes.
Wurzburg, 1842.
Bechterev, Vladimir Michajlovic : La suggestion et son role dans la vie sodale.
Tr. par P. Keraval. Paris, 1910.
Becker, Walther: Okkultismus und Wissenschaft. Buenos Aires, 1900.
Beecher, Charles: A review of the "spiritual manifestations." New York, 1853.*
Beers, Qifford Whittingham : A mind that found itself. New York, 191 3.
Begbie, Peter James: Supernatural illusions. 2 vols, in i. London, 1851.*
Beighle, Mrs. Helen Craib: J. J. Owen, ''Our little doctor," Helen Craib, and
the magic power of her electric hand. San Francisco, 1893.
Belden, L. W. : An account of Jane C. Rider, the Springfield somnambulist
Springfield, 1834.*
Bell, Gark: Spiritism, hypnotism, and telepathy, as involved in the case of Mrs.
Leonora £. Piper, and the Society for Psychical Research . . . and the dis-
cussion thereon by Thomas Jay Hudson, LL. D., and more than twenty
observers. New York, I9C4.*
Bell, John: The general and particular principles of animal electricity and mag-
netism. London, 1792.*
Bennett, Edward T.: Automatic speaking and writing; a study. London, 1905.*
Psychic phenomena; a brief account of the physical manifestations ob-
served in psychical research, with fac-simile illustrations of the drawings
and automatic writing by B. Foreword by Sir Oliver Lodge.
New York, 1909.*
The Society for Psychical Research; its rise, progress, and a sketch of its
work, with facsimile illustrations of three pairs of the thought-transference
drawings. London, 1903.*
Twenty years of psychical research. London, 1904.*
Benussi, Vittorio: Psychologic der Zeitauffassung. Heidelberg, 191 3.
Berenger-Feraud, Laurent Jean Baptiste: Superstitions et survivances.
Paris, 1896.
Berg, Joseph Frederick: Abaddon and Mahamaim; or. Daemons and guardian
angels. Philadelphia, 1856.
Bergasse, Nicolas: Considerations sur le magn6tisme animal. La Haye, 1784.*
Bergen, Mrs. Fanny Dickerson: Current superstitions. Boston, 1894.*
Bergson, Henri Louis: Dreams. New York, 1914.
Essai sur les donnees imm6diates de la conscience. Paris, 1908.
B^rillon, Edgar: L'hypnotisme et I'orthop^ie mentale. Paris, 1898.*
Hypnotisme experimental. Paris, 1884.*
Bemheim, Femand: De Tasphasie motrice. Paris, 1901.
De la suggestion dans T^tat hypnotique; r6ponse i M. Paul Janet.
Paris, 1884.*
. Bemheim, Hippolyte : Hypnotisme, suggestion, psychoth6rapie ; avec considto-
tions nouvelles sur rhyst6rie. Paris, 1903.*
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BOOKS IN PSYCHICAL RESEARCH LIBRARY 555
Bernheim, Hippolyte: Suggestive therapeutics. New York, 1889.
Bernoulli, Daniel : Die Grundlage der modernen Wertlehre ; Versuch einef neuen
Theorie der Wertbestinunung von Glucksfallen. Leipzig, 1896.
Bernstein, Julius : The five senses of man. New York, 1890.
Berry, Mrs. Catherine: Experiences in spiritualism. London, 1876.*
Bertrand, Alexandre Jacques Francis: Du magn6tisme animal en France et des
jugements qu'en ont port^s les soci6t6s savantes. Paris, 1826.*
Trait6 du sonmambulisme. Paris, 1823.*
Bertrand, Alexis : L'aperception du corps humain par la conscience. Paris, 1880.*
Bertrand, Joseph Louis Francois: Calcul des probabilit^s. Paris, 1889.
Besant, Mrs. Annie: The ancient wisdom. London, 1897.
Birth and evolution of the soul. London, 1903.
Esoteric Christianity, or, the lesser mysteries. New York, 1902.
The evolution of life and form. London, 1900
The riddle of life and how theosophy answers it London, 191 1.
Thought power; its control and culture. London, 1904.
Bianchi, Leonardo : A text-book of psychiatry for physicians and surgeons.
New York, 1906.
Bibliotheca diabolica; in two parts, pro and con; choice selection of the most
valuable books relating to the devil. New York, 1874.
Bigelow, John : The mjrstery of sleep. Rewritten and enlarged. New York, 1905.*
Billington, L. W. : Review of A. J. Davis's Revelations. Rochester, 1848.
Billot, G. P.: Recherches psychologiques sur la cause des phfnomenes extra-
ordinaires observe chez les modemes voyans. 2 vols. Paris, 1859.*
Binder, Rudolph Michael : Feeling as the principle of individuation and socializa-
tion. New York, 1903.
Binet, Alfred : Alterations of personality. New York, 1896.
L'ame et le corps. Paris, 1906.
On double consciousness; experimental psychological studies.
Chicago, 1896.
La psychologic du raisonnement ; recherches exp^rimentales par ITiypno-
tisme. Paris, 1911.*
The psychology of reasoning. Tr. by A. G. White. Chicago, 1899.
La suggestibility Paris, 1900.
and F6r6, Charles: Animal magnetism. New York, 1892.
Binswanger, O.: Die Hysteric. Wein, 1904.
Binz, Carl: Ueber den Traum. Bonn, 1878.*
Birlinger, Anton (Ed.): Aus Schwaben; Sagen, Legenden, Aberglauben.
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Le monde invisible. Paris, 1902.*
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— ^— Scientific mental healing. Boston, 1911.*
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Eusapia Palladino and her phenomena. New York, 1909-^
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Chiromantia ; physionomia, ex aspectu membrorum hominis; periaxiomata de
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Constant, Alphonse Louis: Histoire de la magie, avec une exposition claire et
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The mysteries of magic : a digest of the writings of Eliphas Levi (pseud.)
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Spiritualism answered by science; with proofs of a psychic force; with
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A search after ultimate truth. Boston, 191a
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Spiritualism and the age we live in. London, 18591*
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The dangers of spiritualism, being record of personal experience by a member of
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Davies, Thomas Witton: Magic, divination, and demonology among the Hebrews
and their neighbors. London, i8p8.*
Davis, Andrew Jackson: Answers to ever-recurring questions from the people.
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The approaching crisis. Rochester, 191a*
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Death and the after-life. Rev. and enl. Rochester, 1911.*
The Dialdca, and their earthly victims. Rochester, 191 1.
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The fountain; with jets of new meanings. 6th ed. Rochester, 191 1.*
Free thoughts concerning religion; or, Nature versus theology. Rev.
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• The harbinger of health. 19th ed. Rochester, I909.*
The harmonial man; or. Thoughts for the age. Boston, 1872.*
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Lectures on dairmativeness. New York, 1845.*
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«— Memoranda of persons, places, and events. New York, 1911.
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Davis, Andrew Jackson : A sacred book, containing cJd and new gospels.
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A stellar key to the summer-land. Boston, 1867.*
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Views of our heavenly home; a sequel to "A stellar key to the summer-
land" Rochester, 1910.*
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the Gompei). Yokohama, 1910.
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Wheatstone, 'Sir Charles : The scientific papers of Sir C W. London, 1879.
Whipple, Edward: Biography of James M. Peebles. Battle Creek, 1901.*
White, Andrew Dickson: A history of the warfare of science with theology in
Christendom. 2 vols. New York, 1896.
White, Edward: Modem spiritualism judged in the light of divine revelation;
being five discourses delivered at the Merchants' lecture, in May, 1893.
London, 1893.*
White, William Alanson: Mental mechanisms. New York, 191 1.
The modem treatment of nervous and mental diseases, by American and
British authors. 2 vols. London, 1913.
■ Outlines of psychiatry. New York, 1909.
Whiting, Lilian: After her death; the story of a summer. London, 1904.*
The spiritual significance; or death as an event in life. Boston, 1902.*
■ The world beautiful 3 vols. Boston, 1896-98.*
Whitmore, Charles Edward: The supematural in tragedy. Cambridge, 191S
Whitworth, William Allen: Choice and chance. Cambridge, 1886.
Wiedemann, Karl Alfred: Ancient Egyptian doctrine of immortality of the souL
New York, 1895.
- The realms of the Egyptian dead, according to the belief of the ancient
Egyptians. London, 1902.
Wiedenmann, Johannes Baptist: Die Macht des Willens und der Gedankenkon-
zentration; Praktische Methoden zur Entwickelung geistiger Krafte. 2
vols. Leipzig, 1908-09.*
Wilbur, Sibyl : The life of Mary Baker Eddy. New York, 190a
William, Sir (Pseud.) : The occults in council; or. The great leaming. v. i.
Denver, 1901.*
Williams, Henry Llewellyn : The magician's own book. New York, 1857.
Williams, John S. : A synopsis of the spiritual experience of John S. Williams,
medium. New York, 1853.*
Williams, Mabel Clare: Normal illusions in representative geometrical forms.
(In Iowa University Studies in psychology, v. 3.) Iowa City, 1902.
Williamson, M. J.: Modem diabolism; commonly called modem spiritualism;
with new theories of light, heat, electricity, and sound. New York, 1873.*
Willis, Alfred E.: Illustrated physiognomy. Chicago, 1879.*
Willman, Reinhold: The errors of mind healing compared with the miracles of
Christ and His disciples in the healing of the afflicted, as viewed by a physi-
cian. Saint Joseph, 1909.
Willmann, Carl: Der Gedachtniskiinstler als Hellseher. 2. Aufl. Leipzig, 1897.*
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BOOKS IN PSYCHICAL RESEARCH LIBRARY 615
Willson, Henry Beckles: Occultism and common sense; with an introduction by
Prof. W. F. Barrett. London, 1908.*
Wilson, Albert : Education, personality and crime ; a practical treatise built upon
scientific details, dealing with difficult social problems. London, 1908.'*'
Windelband, Wilhelm: Die Hypothese des Unbewussten. Heidelberg, 1914.
Winslow, Forbes Benignus: On obscure diseases of the brain, and disorders of
the mind; their symptoms, pathology, diagnosis, treatment, £ind prophylaxis.
Philadelphia, i860.
Winsor, Justin: The literature of witchcraft in New England. (In American
antiquarian society Proceedings, n. s., v. 10.) Worcester, Mass., 1896.
Winter, Martin: Ueber Avicennas opus egregium De anima (Liber sextus ma-
turalium). Grundlegender Teil. Miinchen, 1903.*
Wirth, J. U. : Theorie des Somnambulismus oder des thierischen Magnetismus.
Leipzig, 1836.*
Wirth, Moritz: Herm Professor ZoUners Experimente mit dem amerikanischen
Medium Herm Slade und seine Hypothese intelligenter vierdimensionaler
Wesen; ein Vortrag, gehalten am 25. Oct. und i. Nov. 1878 im Akadem-
isch-Philosophischen Verein zu Leipzig. In 3. Aufl. ganzlich umgearb. und
stark verm. Mit einer Antwort an ... W. Vogel in Berlin und J. B. Meyer
in Bonn. Leipzig, 1882.*
Die mediumistische Frage, ihre Lage und Losung; Ein Aufruf von Mor-
itz Wirth. Leipzig, 1885.*
Wirth, Wilhelm: Psychophysik ; Darstellung der Methoden der experimentellen
Psychologie. Leipzig, 19 12.
The Witchcraft papers. (In Massachusetts Historical Society Proceedings, v. 5.)
Boston, 1862.
Witzschel, August (Ed.) : Kleine Beitrage zur deutschen Mythologie, Sitten und
Heimatskunde in Sagen und (^brauchen aus Thiiringen. Wien, 1866.
Woeste, J. F. L.: Volksuberlieferungen in der Grafschaft Mark. Iserlohn, 1848.
Wolfe, Napoleon B. : Startling facts in modem spiritualism. Cincinnati, 1874.*
Wood, Henry: Ideal suggestion through mental photography; a restorative sys-
tem for home and private use; preceded by a study of the laws of mental
healing. Boston, 1907.*
Woodbury, Josephine Curtis: Christian science voices. Boston, 1897.
Worcester, Elwood and McComb, Samuel: The Christian religion as a healing
power; a defense and exposition of the Emmanuel movement.
New York, 1909.
Religion and medicine; the moral control of nervous disorders.
New York, 1908.
Worrell, William Hoyt: Studien zum abessinischen Zauberwesen.
Strassburg, 1909.
Wossidlo, Richard (Ed.) : Mecklenburgische Volksuberlieferungen. v. i : Rat-
sel. Wismar, 1897.
Wright, Thomas: A contemporary narrative of the proceedings against Dame
Alice Kyteler prosecuted for sorcery in 1324. London, 1843.
Narratives of sorcery and magic, from the most authentic sources. First
published in London, 1851. New York, 1852.*
Wundt, Wilhelm: Beitrage zur Theorie der Sinneswahrnehmung. Leipzig, 1862.
Elemente der Volkerpsychologie ; Grundlinien einer psychologischen Ent-
wicklungsgeschichte der Menschheit. Leipzig, 1912.
Essays. Leipzig, 1906.
Ethics ; Investigation of the facts and laws of moral life. 3 v.
London, 1897-1901.
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616 APPENDIX E
Wundt, Wilhelm: Problexne der Volkerpsychologie. Leipzig, 191 1.
Der Spiritismus; Einc sogenannte wissenschaftliche Frage; OflFener Brief
an Herrn Prof. Dr. Hermann Ulricl Leipzig, 1879*
Volkerpsychologie; eine Untersuchung der Entwicklungsgesetze. Zwd-
ter Band: Mythus und Religion. 2 pts. Leipzig, 1900-09.
Wuttke, Karl Friedrich Adolf: Der deutsche Volksaberglaube der Gegenwart.
Berlin, 1869.
Yost, Casper Salathicl: Patience Worth; a psychic mystery. New York, 1916.
Yule, G. Udny : An introduction to the theory of statistics. 3d ed. London, 1916.
Yung, fimile: Hypnotisme et spiritisme. Geneve, 189a*
Zacher, Ernst Julius August: Die deutschen Sprichwortersammlungen.
Leipzig, 1852.
Zahm, John Augustine: Evolution and dogma. Chicago, 1896.
Zerffi, George Gustavus: Spiritualism and animal magnetism; a treatise on
dreams, second sight, somnambulism, magnetic sleep. London, 1871.*
Ziehen, Georg Theodor: Die Erkennung der psychopathischen Konstitutionen.
Berlin, 1912.
Die Erkennung des Schwachsinns im Kindesalter. 2. Aufl. Berlin, 1913.
Die Prinzipien und Methoden der Intelligenzpnifung. 3. Aufl.
Berlin, 191 1.
Psychiatric fur Arzte und Studierende. Leipzig, 1908.
Zingerle, Ignaz Vincenz, Edler von Summersberg: Die deutschen Sprichworter
im Mittelalter. Wien, 1864.
Zollner, Johann Karl Friedrich: Naturwissenschaft und christliche Offenbarung;
populare Beitrage zur Theoric und Geschichte der Vierten Dimension.
Leipzig, i88i.*
Transcendental physics. . . . Tr. from the German, by C. C. Massey.
London, i88a*
tjber die Natur der Cometen. 3. Aufl. Leipzig, 1883.*
Wissenschaftliche Abhandlungen. 4 v. Leipzig, 1878-81.*
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PERIODICALS IN PSYCHICAL RESEARCH LIBRARY 617
PROCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES, AND PERIODICALS.
(The periodicals or proceedings indicated by an asterisk (*) were purchased upon
a special fund which has been supplied, from year to year, by Mr. Thomas Welton
Stanford, of Melbourne, Australia.)
Academic des sciences: Comptes rendus. Paris.
Academy. London.
Alienist and neurologist. St. Louis.
American anthropologist. Lancaster, Pa.
American association for the advancement of Science : Proceedings. Philadelphia.
American Catholic quarterly review. Philadelphia.
American folk-lore society: Memoirs. Boston.
American journal of insanity. Baltimore, Md.
American journal of psychology. Worcester, Mass.
American journal of religious psychology and education. Worcester, Mass.*
American journal of science. New Haven, Conn.
American journal of sociology. Chicago.
American journal of the medical sciences. Philadelphia and New York.
American journal of theology. Chicago.
American law review. Boston.
American magazine. New York.
American medico>psychological association: Proceedings at the annual meeting.
Utica, N. Y.*
American monthly review of reviews. New York.
American naturalist. Lancaster, Pa.
American review. New York.
American review and literary journal. (Preceded by the Monthly magazine and
American review.) New York.
American society for psychical research : Journal New York.
American society for psychical research : Proceedings. Boston.
American society for psychical research : Proceedings. New York.
Andover review. Boston.
Annales des sciences psychiques. Paris.
Annales m6dico-psychologiques. Paris.
L'Ann^e philosophique. Paris.
L'Ann^ psychologique. Paris.
Annual spiritualist register. Aubtim, N. Y.*
Anthropological review. (Continued as the Journal of anthropology.) London.
Archaeologia. London.
Archiv fur die gesamte Psychologic. Leipzig.
Archiv fur Psychiatric und Nervenkrankheiten. Berlin.
Archiv fiir systcmatische Philosophic. Berlin.
Archives dc psychologic. (jkneva.
Archives dc ncurologie. Paris.
Archives du magn^tismc animal, publics par M. Ic baron d'Henin dc Cuvillers
Paris,*
Archives g^n^ralcs de m^decine. Paris.
Archives of psychology. New York
Arena. Boston!
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618 APPENDIX E
Aristotelian society for the systematic study of philosophy : Proceedings. London.
Association medical joomaL (Formed by the onion of the Provincial medical and
surgical journal and London journal of medicine; continued as British
medical journal). London.
Astronomical and astrophysical society of America : Publications.
Ann Arbor, Mich.
Astronomy and astro-physics. (Continued as Astrophysical journal.)
Northfield, Minn.
Astrophysical journal. (Continues Astronomy and astrophysics.) Chicago.
Athenaeum. London.
Atlantic Monthly. Boston.
Bedrock : A quarterly review of scientific thought. London.
Beitrage zur Psychologie der Aussagc. (Continued as Zeitschrift fur angewandte
Psychologic. ) Leipzig.
Berliner klinische Wochenschrift. Berlin.
Biblical repertory and Princeton review. (Sec New Princeton review). Princeton.
Biblical world. Chicago.
Blackwood's Edinburgh magazine. Edinburgh
Bookman. New York.
Book reviews ; a monthly journal devoted to new and current publications.
New York.
Borderland ; a quarterly review and index. London.*
Boston courier. Boston.*
Boston medical and surgical journal. Boston.
Brain. London.
British and foreign medical review. (Merged into British and foreign medico-
chirurgical review). London.
British association for the advancement of science: Report. London.
British journal of psychology. Cambridge.
British medical journal ; the journal of the Britbh medical association. London.
Califomian. (See Overland monthly). San Francisco.
•Case and comment. Rochester, N. Y.
Cassier's magazine. New York-
Catholic world. New York.
Century illustrated monthly magazine. (Formerly under title of Scribner's monthly).
New York.
Charities. (See Survey.)
Charities and the commons. (See Survey.)
Chautauquan. Meadville, Pa.
Classical review. London.
Collier's, the national weekly. New York.
Columbia university quarterly. New York.
Columbus medical journal. Columbus, O.
Congres international de Thypnotisme experimental et th^rapeutique : (3omptes
rendus. ist, Paris, 1889; 2d, Paris, 1902.*
Congres international de psychologie exp6rimentale. Paris.*
Congres spirite et spiritualiste international. Paris.*
Congressional record. Washington, D. C.
Contemporary review. London.
(3ornhill magazine. London.
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PERIODICALS IN PSYCHICAL RESEARCH LIBRARY
619
Cosmopolitan magazine. New York.
Critic. (Merged into Putnam's monthly). New York.
Current literature. (Changed to Current opinion, in 1913.) New York.
Current opinion. New York.
Dawn; a journal of social and religious progress. New York.*
Dial. Chicago.
Dublin review. London.
Eclectic magazine of foreign literature, science and art.
New York and Philadelphia.
Eclectic review. New York.
Edinburgh medical and surgical journal. (Merged into Edinburgh medical journal.)
Edinburgh; London.
Edinburgh review. Edinburgh; London.
Educational review. London.
Educational review. New York.
Engineer. London.
Engineer. (Merged into Power, 1908.) (Chicago.
Everybody's magazine. New York.
Expositor. London.
Folk-lore society: Journal, Record, and Quarterly review. London.
Fortnightly review. London.
Forum. New York.
Franklin institute: Journal. Philadelphia.
Eraser's magazine. (Superseded by Longman's magazine.) London.
Gazette des hopitaux civils et militaires. (See Lancette Fran^aise.) Paris.
Gazette m^dicale de Montr&il. Montreal.
Gazette m^dicale de Paris. Paris.
Gentleman's magazine. London.
Gesellschaft fur psychologischc Forschung. ' Leipzig.
Glasgow medical journal. Glasgow ; London.
Harbinger of light. Melbourne.*
Harper's monthly magazine. New York.
Harper's weekly. New York.
Hearst's magazine. Chicago.
Hibbert journal ; a quarterly review of religion, theology, and philosophy. London.
Imago: Zcitschrift fur Anwendung der Psychoanalyse auf die Geisteswissen-
schaften. Leipzig; Vienna.
Independent. New York.
Institut g6n6ral psychologique : Bulletin. Paris.
International congress of psychology : Proceedings.
Paris; Miinchen; Rome; Geneva.
Internationale Gesellschaft fiir psychische Forschung: Bulletin. • Leipzig.*
International journal of ethics. Philadelphia.
International quarterly. Burlington, Vt
Journal de physique. Paris.
Journal fiir Psychologic und Neurologic. (Formerly Zeitschrift fur Hypnotismus.)
Leipzig.
Journal of abnormal psychology. Boston.
Journal of American folk-lore. Boston.
Journal of anatomy and physiology. London.
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620 APPENDIX E
Journal of anthropology. (Published for the Anthropological society of London.)
(Preceded by Anthropological review.) London.
Journal of medical research. (Continues Boston society of medical research:
Journal.) Boston.
Journal of mental pathology. New York.
Journal of mental science. London.*
Journal of nervous and mental diseases. New York.
Journal of phik>sophy, psychology and scientific methods. New York.
Journal of psychological medicine. London.
Journal of religious psychology. (Continued as American journal of religious
psychology.) Worcester, Mass.
Juridical review. Edinburgh.
Knickerbocker ; or, New York monthly magazine. New York.
Kongress fur experimentelle Psychologic: Bericht. Leipzig.
Lancet. London.
Lancette fran^ise; gazette des hopitaux civib et militaires. Paris.
Literary digest. New York.
Living age. Boston.
London, Edinburgh and Dublin philosophical magazine. London.
London medical gazette. (Merged into Medical times and gazette.) London.
London quarterly review. London.
London times; weekly edition. London.
Luce e ombra; rivista mensile illustrata di sdenze spiritualiste. Milano."^
McQure's magazine. New York.
Magazine of American history. Port Chester, New York.
Medical era. (Merged into Qinique.) Chicago.
Medical era. (Merged into Medical review.) * St. Louis.
Medical news. (Merged into New York medical journal) Philadelphia.
Medical record. New York.
Medical society of the state of Pennsylvania: Transactions. (Continued in Penn-
sylvania medical journal.) Athens.
Medical times. (Continues Medical Times and Hospital gazette.) London.
Medical times. (Merged into Medical times and gazette.) London.
Medical times. New York.
Medical times and gazette. London.
Mental hygiene conference: Proceedings. New York.
Mind; a quarterly review of psychology and philosophy. London.
Missionary review of the world. New York.
Modem language review. Cambridge.
Monist. CHiicago.
Month. Sidney.
Monthly journal of medical science. (Merged into Edinburgh medical journal.)
Edinburgh.
Monthly magazine and American review. (Continued as American review and
literary journal.) New York.
Museum of foreign literature, science and art; reviews of for«gn literature.
Philadelphia.
Nation. London.
Nation. New York.
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PERIODICALS IN PSYCHICAL RESEARCH LIBRARY 621
National committee for mental hygiene: Proceedings of the annual meeting, 7th-
8th. New York.
National magazine. New York.
National review. Shanghai, China.
Nature. London.
Neurologisches Centralblatt. Leipzig.
New England magazine. Boston.
New Princeton review. (Preceded by Princeton review; preceded by Presbyter-
ian quarterly and Princeton review.) New York.
New republic. New York.
New world. Boston.
New York medical journal. New York.
Nichols monthly; a magazine of social science and progressive literature.
Cincinnati.
Ninteenth century and after ; a monthly review. London.
North American review. Boston; New York.
North British review. Edinburgh.
Nouvelle revue pratique dc droit international priv6. Paris.
Open court. Chicago.
Outing. Albany, New York.
Outlook. New York.
Overlanfd monthly. San Francisco.
Pacific monthly. (Merged into Sunset.) Portland, Ore.
Pedagogical seminary. Worcester, Mass.
Pennsylvania medical journal. Athens.
Philosophical magazine. (See London, Edinburgh and Dublin philosophical mag-
azine.)
Philosophical review. Boston.
Philosophische Studien. (Continued as Psychologische Studien.) Leipzig.
Pioneer; or, California monthly magazine. San Francisco.
Popular astronomy. Northfield, Minn.
Popular science monthly. (Continued as the Scientific monthly.) New York.
Practitioner. Baltimore.
Practitioner. London.
Presbyterian quarterly and Princeton review. (Preceded by Biblical Repertory
and Princeton Review.) Princetoa
Progr^ m6dical. Paris.
Psychical review. Grafton, Mass.
Psychische Studien. Leipzig.*
Psychological bulletin. Lancaster, Pa.; Princeton, N. J.
Psychological monographs. New York.
Psychological review. Lancaster, Pa.; Princeton, N. J.
Putnam's magazine; an illustrated monthly of literature, art and life. (Merged
into Atlantic monthly.) New Rochelle, New York.
Putnam's monthly. (See Putnam's magazine; an illustrated monthly.)
Quarterly journal of science, literature and art. London.
Quarterly review. London.
Review of reviews. (See American monthly review of reviews.) New York.
Revue de I'hypnotisme experimental et th^rapeutique. Paris.*
Revue de mWecine. Paris.
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622
APPENDIX E
Paris.*
(Sec Revue scien-
Paris.
Paris.
Paris.
Paris.
Paris.
Paris.
Revue de psychoth6rapie et de psychologie appliqu6e.
Revue des cours scientifiques de la France et de rtoanger.
tiiique.)
Revue des deux mondes.
Revue g6n6rale des sciences.
Revue philosophique de la France et de T^tranger.
Revue politique et litt^raire ; revue bleue.
Revue sdentifique. (Revue rose.)
Ri vista di scienza. (See "Scientia," ri vista di scicnza.)
Royal anthropological institute of Great Briuin and Ireland : Journal. (Continued
from Anthropological review, and Journal of anthropology.) London.
Royal society of London: Proceedings. London.
Saturday review. London.
Science. Cambridge; New York.
Science; a weekly record of scientific progress. New York-
Science progress in the twentieth century. London.
"Scientia"; rivista di scienza. (Continues Rivista di scienza.) Bologna.
Scientific American. New York.
Scientific American supplement. New York.
Scientific monthly. New York.
Scribner's magazine. New York.
Scribner's monthly; an illustrated magazine for the people.
Century illustrated monthly magazine.)
Sewanee review, quarterly.
Sidereal messenger. (See Astronomy and astrophysics.)
Smithsonian institution reports.
Soci6t^ de biologic: Comptes rendus et m6moires.
Society for psychical research : Combined index.
Journal.
• Proceedings.
Southern literary messenger.
Spectator.
Stanford sequoia.
(Changed to the
New York.
Sewanee, Tenn.
Northfield, Minn.
Washington, D; C.
Paris.
London.
London.*
London.*
Richmond.
London.
Stanford University, CaL
Survey. (Continues Charities and the Commons, preceded by Charities.)
New Yoric.
Unpopular review. New York.
Westminster review. London.
World today. (See Hearst's magazine.)
World's work. New York.
Yale divinity quarterly. New Haven.
Zeitschrift fur angewandte Psychologie und psychologische Sammelforschung.
Leiprig.
Zeitschrift fur deutsche M3rthologie und Sittenkunde. CJottingen.
Zeitschrift fur die Erforschung und Behandlung des jugendlichen Schwachsinns,
auf wissenschaftlicher Grundlage. Jena.
Zeitschrift fur Hypnotismiis. (Continued as Journal fur Psychologie und Neuro-
logic.) Leipzig.
Zeitschrift fur Pathopsychologie. Leipzig.
Zeitschrift fur Psychologie und Physiologic der Sinncsorganc. Leipzig.
Zoist: a journal of cerebral physiology & mesmerism, and their applications to
human welfare, vol. 1-13. 1843-1856. Lwidon.*
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INDEXES
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INDEX OF NAMES
A Business Man, 17
Abbott, D. P., 34, 506, 532
Ach, N. 425
Aggazzotti, Dr., 527
Alcott, Louisa M., 3j5o
Angell, F., xvii, xxiii, 281, 289, 375
Angell, J. R., 22, 172.
Argelander, F. W. A., 241, 243.
Arkwright, F., 355
Arkwright, W., 355
Armstrong, H. E., 17
Azam, E., 533
''B." Miss, SAO
'*B. C. A.," 533, 54P
Bagard, H., 496
Bagley, W. C, 407
Bain, A., 405
Balfour, A J., 170
Ballet, G., 496-7
Barrett, W. F., xx, xxiii, 17, 18, 302,
461, 464, 465, 471, 472, 474, 4771,
490, 491, 498, 502
Bastian, H. C, 404
Bauch, M., 260, 261, 263, 264
Bayes, T., 82, 84, 313
Beard, G. M., 34, 360 ff.
Becqucrel, J., 496
Bell, C N., 146
Bek)ch, J., 255, 257
Benigni, E., 498
Bennett, E. T., 491
Bergson, H., 26, 29, 170, 174, 214, 225
Bernoulli, J., 82, 87, 313, 334
Bertrand, J. L. F., 82
Bichat, E., 496
Binet, A., 424, 429
Birchall, J., 20, 493
Bishop, I., 484, 493
Bjomson, B., 368
Blackburn, D., 299 £., 300, 302, 303, 477 flf.
Blake, Mrs. 506, 507, 520, 545
Blondlot, R., 49(5, 497
Bohn, 496
Bonola, F., 497
Boquet, F., 256, 257, 258, 259, 261, 287
Bordier, H., 496
Bourn, H., 533
Braid, J., 34
Bramwell, J. M., 19, 500
Branner, J. C, 411
Brazza, M. di, 497
Brett, H. W., 353
Bi-cydel, 496
Broca, A., 497
Brown, Mr. and Mrs. J. F., 49
Brown, W., 202
Bruck, P., 256, 257
Buchanan, J. R., 134
Buffon, 343, 344
Burot, P. F., 533
"Burton," Miss, 507, 520, 525, 532 U 534,
545
Bush, R. T., 361
"C," Miss, 540
Campbell, W. W., 357
Carpenter, W. B., 34, 172
Carrington, H., 15, 505, 527, 549
Cashmore, G. T., 48
Cavina, G., 497
Charlier, C. V. L., 320, 321, 343, 344
Charpentier, A., 496
Chauvenet, W., 2(&
Clark, G. T., ix
Clossen, 497
Cocke, Mr., 541
Collins, Lord Justice, 352
Colquhoun, W., 497
Constable, F. C, 18
Coover, C. C, 324, 325, 344
Coover, J. E., xxii f., 174, 202, 252, 253,
254, 324, 325. 344, 356, 454, 503, 505,
544
Corelli, Marie, 540
Corson, 496
Cox, B., 351
Crane, Miss, 360
Creery, A. M., 464, 468, 473 f., 477
Creery Sisters, 294, 303, 463 ff., 492, 493,
^ 494
Crich ton-Browne, J., 4^
Crookes, W., xxi, 171, 498, 527
Cubberley, E. P., ix
Curtis, H. S., 520
Darbishire, A. D., ^^ 344
Darwin, C, 360
Davenport, C. B., 86, 87, 104, 105, 107,
no, 128, 378
Davenport Brothers, 532
Davey, S. J., 369, 483
Davis, A. J., 134
Dean, Jane, 463, 477
De Morgan, 343, 344, 349!, 357
Desbeaux, E., 348!
625
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626
INDEX OF NAMES
Dessoir, M., 20, 304» 533
De Whalley, L. G., 330, 344
Donaldson, H. H., 173
Donath, 497
Donkin, B., 171
Donkin, H., 469 f .
Dresslar, F. B., 265 £., 267, 282, 283
Dunlap, K., 176
"E.," Mrs., 533
Ebbinghaus, H., 425
Eckcncr, H., 173
Edgcworth, F. Y., 48, 80, 313, 335, 4^4
Evans, H. R., 53^
Farquhar, H., 243
Fauth, Ph., 260
Fay, Eva, 53^
Fearing, F. S., ix
Ferct, C. J., 356
Flauu, Elsa, 521, 522
Flournoy, Th., 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 20, 370
Flower, B. O., 507, 525, 545
Fo4, C, 527
Frith, Mrs., 13
FuUcrton, G. S., xx
Gallon, F., 239, 490
Garland, H., 507, SMU 545
Gchrckc, E., 497
Giblin, L., 330
Golding, R., 358
Gonnessiat, F., 287, 290
Greely, A. W., 249, 251
Greene, B. W. B., 3S8 i-
Griffith, 330, 343, 344 ^ ^
Grossmann, E., 246, 264, 205, 290
"Grove," Mrs. Rupert, 8
Gurney, E., 18, 29, 48, 54, 171, 303, 4^1 f.,
463, 464, 465, 472, 473, 478, 484, 485,
486, 488, 490, 492, 495, 498, 502
Guthrie, L. V., 507, 520
Guthrie, M., 20, 493
Gutton, C, 496
Hackett, J. T., 353
Hall, G. S., 17, 21, 34, 303, 470 ff., 482 f.,
493, 502
Hall, J. H., 351
"Hamilton," Dr., 520
Hamilton, W., 172
Hansen, F. C. C, 32, 33, 34, 39, 43, 5i,
219, 223
Hartmann, J., 255, 290
Hazard, T. R., xx
Hellenbach, L. B., 364
Hellmann, G., 250, 251, 260, 261, 287, 288
Helmholtz., H. L. F. von, 496
Henry, J., 360
Herlitzka, Dr., 527
Herman, 532
Hertling, G. von, 260
Hick, Mr., 362
Hill, J. A., 17
Hodge, Mrs., 355
Hodgson, R., 7, 8^ 9, 13, 30i. 303, 353..
369
Hoffding, H., 405
"Holland," Mrs., 12, 13, 541
Holmes, O. W., 355 i
Holmes, Mrs. O. W., 355 i-
Holt, E., 540
Home, D. D., 527
Hooker, 498
Hopkinson, A., 464
Hopkinson, J., 250, 251
Hudson, T. J., 498
Hueck, A., 205
Hughes, H. A., 36
Hulin, G., 349
Humble-Crofts, W. J., 355
Hume, Emma L., 546
Hyslop, J. H., 5, 6, 8, 9, I5, I7, 370, 507r
520, 525, 539, 541, 547, 549
"J.," Mrs., 531
James, W., 3, 4, 6, 10, 15, 20, 25, 32. 33,
34, 47, 124, 137, 142. 149, 302, 368,
369, 370, 405, 533, 534
Janet, P., 18, 429, 533
Jastrow, J., 16, 20, 21, 22, 28, 34, 173, 354r
357, 403, 404
Jensen, G. P. W., ix
Jerusalem, W., 175
Jcvons, W. S., 343, 344
Johnson, Alice, 11, 12, 13, 31, 305, 306,
332 f., 343, 344. 351 f., 353 f., 355 f.
Johnson, Anna, 371
Johnson, H. R., 411 f.
Johnson, S., 360
Jordan, D. S., v, xix, 164
Kampfe, B., 81
Kaufmann, W., 497
Kellar, 532
Keller, Lena M., ix
Kent, Grace H., 285 f.
K6raval, 498
"Key," Mrs., 503 ff.
Kingsley, Canon, 359
Kroeber, A. L., 374
Kiilpe, O., 172, 241
Ladd, G. T., 406
Lambert, M., 496
Lang, A., 10
Lankester, R., 17
Laplace, 312, 313
Laurent, H., g6
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INDEX OF NAMES
627
Law, A., 358
Laycock, D. T., 172
"Le Baron," 370
Lehmann, A., 32, 33, 34, 35, 39, 43, 51,
171, 219, 223
L^inay, J. M. de, 496
Lewitzky, G., 256, 257, 287
Lincoln, A., 364
Lindsay, Miss 6., 48
Lipps, Th., 172
Littrow, K. von, 243
Lodge, O., xxi, xxii, xxiii, 5, 8, 13, 14,
17, 18, 23, 26, 30, 78, 124, 462, 474,
506, 539, 545, 546, 549
Loewenfeld, L., 20
Lombroso, C, 505, 506, 527
Lovejoy, A. O., 414
Lummer, O., 497
Mabire, J. E., 54
M'Dougall, W., 20, 463, 546
McDowell, J. E., ix, 247
McKendrick, J. G., 497
Maeterlinck, M., 10
Mangro, Helen M., 177
Marbe, K, 34, 152, 273, 285, 296
Martin, G. M., 428
Martin, Lillien J., viii, 281, 409 ff.
Mascart, 496
Maskel3me, J. N., 532
Meissner, O., 258, 259, 287. 288
Mendel^eff, 413
Menut, 350
Meyer, E., 496
Meyer, J., 496
Miles, Clarissa, 11, 302
Miller, Beulah, 172, 494
Milne, Dr., 534
Milton, J., 149, 316, 346
Minot, C. S., 171, 268, 269, 296, 298 ff.,
300, 301, 302, 303, 311, 483, 502
Mitchell, S. W., xx, 533
Moll, A., 19 f., 493
Moore, T. V., 174
Morse, S. F^ B., 360
Morselli, E., 34
Mosso, 506, 527
Muller, G. R, 281, 425
Miinger, Jr., A. L., 415
Miinsterberg, H., 172, 494
Murray, G., 226
Myers, A. T., 24
Myers, F. W. H., 2, 5, 24, 29, 48, 54, 304,
325, 364, 424, 461, 464, 472, 478, 484,
485, 486, 488, 489, 490, 492, 498, 540.
Myers, Mrs. F. W. H., 464
Nagcl, Else, ix
Nagel, W. A., 497
Newcomb, S., 20, 144
Newton, L, 225
Nuttall, G. F. H., 173
Obermaycr, A. v., 252, 253
Ogdcn, 350 f .
Osten von, 22, 171, 492
Pacini, D., 497
Palladino, Eusapia, 505, 506, 527, 545
Palmer, Mrs. 362.
Paracelsus, 452
Parish, E., 33
Paul, St., xix
Pearson, K., 96, 250, 314, 315, 3^7^-,
340, 341, 343, 344, 345
Pcirce, B., 242, 255
Peirce, C. S., 173, 242, 243, 244
Peirce, J. M., 124
Pepper, W., xx
Perrine, C. D., 357
Pfungst, O., 21 f., 171, 492, 494
Phaedrus, vi
Pickering, E. C, 124, 240, 244, 294 ff
Pickering, W. H., 297
Piddington, J. G., 12 *
Pigou, A. C, II, 12.
Pillsbury, W. B., 202, 406 f.
Piper, Mrs. 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 13, 18, 20,
142, 541
Pitman, L, 382
Plassmann, J., 260
Podmore, F.. 4, 8, 9, 10, n. 13, 14, I7.
18, 25, 48, 54. 121, 305, 306, 370, 452.
474, 483 f., 485, 486, 491, 493, 498,
505, 527, 532, 541
Poisson, S. D., 82, 313
Preyer, W., 34, 50, 171, 335 f.
Prince, M., 424, 429, 533, 540 £., 546
Proctor, R. A., 349 ff., 357
Pyle, W. H., 177
Quetelet, A., 148, 321, 322, 343, 344, 350
Ramsden, Hermione, 11, 302
Rawson, H. G., 78
Raymond, H., 360
Reinhold, F., 285
Rejmolds, J. T., ix
Ribot, Th., 423, 533
Richard II, 540
Richet, Ch., 18, 23 f., 29, 34, 47, 48 f., 49,
50, 65, 124, 149, 303 f., 306, 312,
335 U 506
Rigby, Lord Justice, 352
Rontgen, 7
Romanes, G. J., 484, 490
Rosanoff, A. J., 285 f.
Rothc, E., 496
Royce, J., 364
Rudge, W. A. D., 497
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628
INDEX OF NAMES
Rux, C, 425
"S," Mrs., 507, 524 U 545
Sagnac, G., 496
Salisbury, Earl and Countess of, 540
Salvioni, E., 497
Sanford, E. C, 260, 266 ff., 269, 282 f.
Sanger, C. P., 85
Sauvairc, C, 175
Schenck, C. C, 497
Schiller, F. C. S^ 10
SchmoU, A., 54, 299
Schonfeld, Prof., 244, 245 f.
Schumann, Fr., 202
Scripture, E. W., 27 f., 80, 82, 84, 175
Seybert, H., xix
Shah of Persia, 359
Shakespeare, W., 149, 316
Shaw, A. Margaret, 186 ff., 217, 219, 224
Shilton, A. J., 48
Shuttleworth, Miss, 354
Sidgwick, H., xx, xxi, 18, 24, 32, 33, 142,
463, 464, 468 f ., 473, 484, 495, 502
Sidgwick, Mrs. H., 18, 20, 31, 39, 43, 142,
304, 369, 464, 473, 490
Sidis, B., 177 ff., 188, 196, 217, 224,
Slade, H., 538
"Smead," Mrs., 370, 54i
Smith, Lord Justice A. L., 352
Smith, G. A., 299 f., 300, 302, 303, 477 ff -,
493
Smith, Gwendoline, 321, 322, 341
"Smith," Helene, 4, 7, 370
"Smyth," Dr., 520
Stanford, T. W., iii, xix ff., 551, 617
Stanley, H. M., 146
Starch, D., 248
Steinmetz, 350 f.
Stephens, A. H., 355
Stewart, B., 24 f., 464 f., 471, 495
Stout, G. F., 173, 226
Stradling, G. F., 498
Stratton, G. M., 173
Strieker, S., 520
3troh, Marie, 186 ff., 217, 219, 224
Sudden, Anita. 324, 342, 344
Swinton, A. A. C., 497
Tanner, Amy E., 21, 34
Taylor, G. Le M., 300, 301
"The Hermit of Prague," 17, 28, 502
Thomas, Fr., 176
Thomas, N. W., xviii, 5, 16, 17, 19, 26,
121, 124, 226, 312, 474, 491, 500.
Thompson, Mrs., 5, 539
Thumb, A., 285
Titchener, E. B., 22, 145 f., 152, 177, 229,
284, 406
Todhunter, I., 82, 313
Townley, S. D., 260, 261
Truesdell, J. W., 532
Tucker, M. A., ix
Tuckett, I. LI., 15, 17, 18, 19, 22, 26 f.,
171, 173, 302, 358, 490, 5Q2
Tunzelmann, G. W., 498
Turpain, A., 497 f.
Twain, Mark, 171, 354, 359 f., 3^3* 498
Upp, D. C, ix
Urban, F. M., 262, 263
Vaschide, N., 34, 421
Venn, J., 149, 316, 346
Verrall, Mrs. A. W., 12, 13, 85, 174, 452,
541
Virtz, 496
Volkmann, A. W., 205
Voltaire, 360
Wagner, F., 411
Wallace, A. R., 360
Walter, A., 249, 251, 289, 290
Washburn, Margaret F., 177, 186 ff., 217,
219, 224
Weber, E. H., 225
Weldon, W. F. R., 321, 322, 326, 341,
342, 344, 345
Wellington, Duke of, 355
Westergaard, H., 319, 343, 344
Wheatstone, C, 360
White, Miss, 355
Wilkie, F. B., 358
Willson, B., 358
Wingfield, The Misses, 48, 303
Wise-Knut, 368
Wood, R. W., 498
Woodworth, R. S., 406
Wright, W. H., 354, 360
Wundt, W., 81, 290, 405 f.
Wyczoikowska, Anna, 520
"X," Miss, 540
Yerkes, R. M., 262, 263
Yost, C. S., 316
Yule, G. U., 86, 95, 105, 128, 314, 317.
319, 321, 322, 334, 342, 343, 345. 378
Zahn, H., 497
Zimmem, A., 497
Zinger, N., 256, 287
Zollner, J. K F., 538
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INDEX OF SUBJECTS
Ages, of the Latin dead show influence
of mental habit, 255, 257, 265; of
the population of the U. S. show
influence of mental habit, 231 flf.
American Society for Psychical Re-
search (old), officers of, quoted on
telepathy, 20, 21, 144, 296, 297; left
investigation of telepathy unfinished,
24; found negative results in ex-
periments on thought-transference,
24. 34, 49, 124, 341, 343 f. ; work of.
referred to, 50, 53» 54» 268 f., 294 ff.,
298 f., 369
(the present), acknowledgment
of obligations to, ix; seeking proof
of survival, 3, 535; "controls" de-
lighted with prospect of report to,
541 ; officer of, quoted, 547, 548
Amnesia for somnambulistic and trance
phenomena, 533 f., note 44
Anaesthesia for automatic phenomena,
532, note 43
"Annette," a 'personality* that expresses
itself through Mrs. Holland's script,
reproduced forgotten memory, 541
Argelander's Durchmusterung, shows
influence of mental habit, 241 ff .
Augmentation of vision in hypnotized
boy, (Bergson), 174; girl, (Sau-
vaire), 175
Automatisms, sensory and motor, re-
sponsible for "inner experience" of
telepathy, 47, "7, 142!, 152, 167
Barrett's dictum that telepathy is not a
subject of controversy, 502; contro-
verted, (Tuckett, Minot, Hall), 502
Bayes' theorem, applied to results of ex-
periments on thought-transference,
84 f.
Beard, elaborate coincidence reported
by, 360 ff .
"Beauchamp, Sally," an alternating per-
sonality, suppressed by Prince, re-
garded by M'Dougall as a possessing
spirit, s^
Bernoulli's theorem, applied to results
of experiments on thought-trans-
ference, 8oflF. ; importance of, stated
by Todhunter, 313 f.
Beulah Miller, the little telepathist of
Rhode Island, read unintended
signs, (Miinsterberg), 172; investi-
gation of, illustrates difficulty of ex-
perimentation on thought-transfer-
ence, 494
Binomial N(q^p)^, formula for expan-
sion of, (Yule), 95
Black cat, imaged in a thought-trans-
ference situation, 159 ff., with nega-
tive results, 163 f., 167
"Booker," president of California Psych-
ical Research Society, 529, 531, 537,
538
"Brain-waves," as an explanation of
thought-transference, 171; not war-
ranted as an hypothesis, (Donkin),
470; associated with n-rays, 498
California Psychical Research Society,
courtesies of, acknowledged, ix, xxiii,
126; program of, 503 ff.; investiga-
tion by, 503 ff.; methods of, com-
mended, (Hyslop), 547, 549, (Car-
rington), 549; see "Trumpet" me-
dium
(3ard-experiments commended for
thought-transference experiments,
(Gumey, Richet), 49 f.; seem well
adapted to test for telepathy or
lucidity, 137
Card-guessing, 48 ff.; successful results
in, 48 f.; negative results in, 49;
commended by Gurney and Richet,
49 f.; by normal reagents, 48 ff.; by
'sensitive' reagents, 125 ff.; see
Thought-transference
Central measures, of results of Lotto-
block-guessing, 39; of card-guessing
by normal reagents, 105 ff. ; by 'sen-
sitive' reagents, 128 ; of results of ex-
periments on the feeling of being
stared at, 147; of results of experi-
ments on subliminal impression,
193 ff. ; of series of chance events,
333 ff. ; of experiments in sound as-
similation, 378 ff.
Chance, may produce any unlikely event,
even Milton's "Paradise Lost" or the
plays of Shakespeare, (Venn), 149,
316, 348 ff.
CHiance events, distributions of, 314 ff.;
central measures of, 333 ff. ; see
Probability
CHiances, the law of, see Probability
629
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630
INDEX OF SUBJECTS
Clairvoyance, power of, possessed by
Mile. "Smith," may be telepathy,
(Floumoy), 4, 7; in trance utter-
ances, (Lodge, Myers), 5; not re-
ducible to telepathy, (Lodge), 13 f.;
not found in laboratory tests, (Hall),
21; found (?) in h)rpnotic subjects
by writer, yj ; card-experiment a test
for, 50, 125, 137; 'sensitives' and
mediums tested for, 125 t ; with neg-
ative results, 120 f., 142 f.
"Qark, Harrison." Mrs. "Smcad's" 'con-
trol,' who failed signally to identify
himself, 541
Qever Hans, the educated horse, read
involuntary signals, (Pfungst), 171;
proximate correctness characteristic
of, 492; experiments with, illustrate
the difficulty of investigation of
thought-transference, 494
Cloudiness, estimates of, show influence
of mental habit, 252
Code in thought-transference, (Hall),
471 f., 482; (S. P. R.), 473; (Black-
bum), 488 f.
Coefficient of correlation, formula for,
(Brown), 202
Coincidences, remarkable, 353 ff.; multi-
ply with interest in them, 354, 357;
see Infinitesimal probability
(Collusion, as an explanation of thought-
transference, 171, 464 flF., 480 ff.,
491 f., 499 f., (Hall), 470 flF., 482 f.,
(Minot), 299 f., 302, 483, (Donkin),
4691, (Crichton-Browne), 490;
found in thought-transference ex-
periments, 472 f. ; confessed by par-
ties to thought-transference experi-
ments, 473, 484 flF.
Comet, coincidence concerning a, 356 f.
(Consonantal sounds in English speech,
frequency of the respective simple,
381 ; analysis of, 382 ; errors made
upon, in use of dictaphone and tele-
phone, 381 f . ; see Sound assimilation
(3omeal reflection, the role of, in experi-
ments on thought-transference, 121 ;
of Arabian numerals read by hypno-
tized boy, (Bergson), 174; experi-
ments in, from playing-cards, 121 flF.,
214 flF.
Creery sisters, experiments with the,
463 flF.
Criminal sentences, show influence of
mental habits, in the U. S., 234 flF.;
in England, 238 flF.
"Critical state," a, probably necessary for
thought-transference, (James), 34,
124, 137, 149, (Lehmann), 34 f.
"Crookes, Sir William," reported by a
'control' to be present in s^nce, 528,
539
Cross-correspondences, simple, (Miss
Johnson), 11; complementary, de-
scribed, (Miss Johnson), 11, and re-
duced to telepathy, (Pigou), 12,
(Podmore), 13
Cross-references, 547; see Cross-corre-
spondences
Crystal-gazing, served to convert sub-
liminal impressions into hallucina-
tory perceptions, 213
"Cycles," Miss Johnson's, in coin-tossing,
in general agreement with theory of
chances, 332, but present several ex-
ceptions, 332!
A, Measure of "closeness of fit," formu-
lae for, (Pearson), no, 315
"Dan," a 'control' of Miss "Burton." de-
ception of, 534
Data subjected to statistical treatment
must be free from errors of testi-
mony, including mal-observation, and
tricks of memory, 365
De Camp- Stockton case, mentioned in
Hyslop's letter to Mrs. "Key," 547
Diagram-habit, the, 298 flF. ; protest
against its wide application in
thought-transference experiments,
(James), 302; see Mental habit
Dice, a throw of 'seven' nine times run-
ning, 350 f.; bias in, shown in dis-
tribution-curves, 326, 327 f. ; shown
in central measures, 344 f.
Dictaphone, used for recording "un-
known tongues," 371 ; used in experi-
ments in sound assimilation, 373
DiflFerences in stimuli too small to be dis-
criminated may still influence re-
action, (Donaldson), 173
Distribution-curves, of R cases in card-
guessing, 99 ff . ; of R cases expected
by reagents, in; of the number of
reagents who graded guesses high,
113; of judgments showing influence
of mental habit, 230 flF. ; of chance
events, 314 flF. ; of the substitution of
sounds in English speech, 382
Distributions, of chance events, follow
the law of chances, 317 flF.; see Em-
pirical and theoretical distributions
Dream coincidences, 358 f., 359
Dresslar's investigation of superstition
among students preparing to teach,
282; study in guessing reveals num-
ber-habits, 265
Eight, inverted, showing space illusion,
289
Elberfeld horses, work by telepathy,
(Maeterlinck), 10
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INDEX OF SUBJECTS
631
Empirical and theoretical central
measures, correspondences between,
333 ff- ; of results from Lotto-block
guessing, 337, drawing of blank
blocks, 337 fT, drawing of digits, 338,
throwing of respective die-spots,
338 f., card-guessing, drawing of re-
spective cards, throwing of roulette
zero, (^=.025), 339 ff.; guessing of
number on cards, guessing of digits,
drawing cards of respective numbers,
(^=.1), 341; throwing the 6-spot
with dice, (/>=.i67), 341 f. ; guessing
suit of cards, drawing respective
suits of cards, tossing heads with
four pennies, (/»=.25), 342; throw-
ing the 5 and 6-spots with dice,
(P—'33)t 342 f.; drawing of blank
blocks, throwing odd dice, guessing
color of cards, drawing tickets,
throwing heads with coins, drawing
white balls, throwing 4, 5, and 6-spots
with dice, throwing red at roulette,
(/'=.5),343ff.
Empirical and theoretical distributions,
agreement of, 314 ff., 328, in re-
sults of card-guessing, 317 f. ; die-
throwing, 319 1, 321 ff., 326 ff., 327;
drawing of white balls, 319 f., 321 ff. ;
guessing or drawing of red cards,
320; tossing of coins, 323 ff., 328;
drawing of red counters, 327 ; draw-
ing hearts (cards), 327; throws of
the roulette ball with respect to odd
and even, 330, but not red and black,
3281, 330 i.f or the respective num-
bers, 33T
Equation dScitnale, l', 256 ; see "Personal
scale"
"Esdale," name seen on coffin, in alleged
premonitory dream, 358
Estimates, of time and space, show in-
fluence of mental habit, 262 ff. ; of
time from kymograph records, show
influence of mental habit, 252 ff.
Evidence, standard of, must be drawn
from recognized departments of
knowledge, (Gurney). 462; "suffi-
cient," is such as will convince the
scientific world, ( Sidgwick) , 463 ; for
telepathy, based upon coincidences in
dreams and hallucinations (spontane-
ous cases), vitiated by both mental
habit and fallibility of testimony, 306
Experimental thought-transference, has
statistical advantaare over "spontane-
ous cases," (Podmore), 14, ((Har-
rington), 15, (Constable), 18,
(Richet, Johnson), 306
Experts, agreement of, is final test of
truth, (Sidgwick), 468
"Eye, Power of the," tested, (Stanley),
146
Fagot theory, the, stated, 495 ; fallacious,
494 ff.. 500 f.
"Feeling of being stared at." prev-.
alence of belief in, by university
students, xxii, 144 f.; tested by ex-
periment, (i) when the reagent
knew that he cither was or was not
to be stared at, 146 ff., (2) when he
did not know he was to be stared at,
I53» (3) when he was given grounds
for suspecting that the experimenter
might exert some sort of influence,
1561, (4) when there were twelve
starers, 158 ff.; variability in cer-
tainty of judgments on, 149; causes
for feeling of certainty, 150 ff., 163;
negative results, 148, 154 f., 167;
evoked only when reagent accepts
suggestions of a staring-situation,
163
"Finn6," the 'control* of Mr. Cocke, said
to be the etymological parent of Mrs.
Piper's "Phinuit," 541
Flamsteed's unlucky coincidence, 357 f.
Foreign tongue, speech in a, see Glos-
solalia
Formulae for :
A, "closeness of fit" and its proba-
bility, (Pearson), no, 315
Expansion of binomial, (Yule), 95
Factorials of large numbers, (Lau-
rent), 96
k, occurrences in n trials, (Laurent),
96
L, limit of chance deviation, 82 f.,
85 f.
n, number of experiments in a set
sufficient to prove extra-chance
cause when L is constant, 83 f.
P, the probability of an event, 80,
95 f.
PE^, probable error of the mean,
105, 333, 378
r, coefficient of correlation, (Brown)*
202
a, standard deviation, empirical, 105,
333 ; theoretical, 334, note 164
for determining amount of in-
fluence of subliminal impression, i8t.
18.^, 196; for determinine amount of
influence of mental habit in jruessing,
292; for testing distributions of
chance events for extra-chance
cause, verified in experience, 333;
application of, to results of experi-
ments on subliminal impression,
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632
INDEX OF SUBJECTS
i8of., 196; see Probability, the
theory of; also Statistical formulae,
Baycs*, Bernoulli's and Poisson's
theorems
French lottery, remarkable plays of the,
349 f.
"Fringe" of consciousness, (Angell),
172; (Murray), 226
"Fringe of perceptions,'* a, unconscious,
but entering into normal perception,
(Bergson), 170, demonstrated, 225
Gambling, rare plays in, illustrative of
the law of chances, 348 ff.
Games of chance, remarkable events in,
325 ff., 348 ff.; see Empirical and
theoretical central measures, In-
finitesimal probability
Ghosts, capacity to see, depends upon
power of projecting visual imagery,
(Martin), 413 ff.; see Local ghosts
Glossolalia (speaking with tongues), in
Martian language of Helenc
"Smith," (Floumoy), and Mrs.
"Smead," (Hyslop). and the Egypt-
ian language of Mr. "Le Baron,"
(James), 370, note 4; cases of, at-
tested by affidavit, 371; method of
establishing 'Toreign tongues," 407 f .
Grades of students, show influence of
common mental habits, 247 ff.; can-
not be made accurate on percentile
scale, 248; reliability of, tested by
Starch, 248, note 21
Great men, unable to spread their au-
thority in other fields over psychical
research, (Angell), xxi, (Bram-
well), 19, (Moll), 20; readily im-
posed upon by mediums, (Moll), 20
Greenwich observatory, observations of,
show influence of mental habit, 250
Guesses are delivered with varying de-
grees of certainty that the guess is
right, by normal reagents, on Lotto-
blocks, 41, cards, 73 ff., 112 f., 123,
on the "feeling of being stared at,"
149, 163; by 'sensitive' reagents on
cards, 131, 137 ff.
Guessing, studies in, 265
Hansen-Lehmann experiments with «n-
willkurlichcm Flustem, 32; critique
of, by Sidgwick and James, 32 f.;
Lehmann's renunciation of conclusion
of, 33; suggested further experi-
ments, 219 f.
Harvard psychological laboratory, en-
gaged in investigation of telepathy,
28
"Hodgson, Dr. Richard," a s^nce 'per-
sonality,' exerted force on the scales,
529; knocked off the cover, 530; re-
ported in error on a judgment of
^ fact, 539
Holmes, coincidence reported by, 355 f.
Hypnotized subject, argumentation of
vision in, (Bergson), 174, (Sau-
vaire), 175
Hypnotized subjects, in thought-trans-
ference experiments, (Mrs. Sidg-
wick), 31; requisite for successful
results, (Lehmann), 34 f.
Illusions, space, 289 f.
Imperceptible differences in sensations,
(Stratton), 173 f.; analogous to sub-
liminal sensations, 225
Improbable, the, must occur in its due
proportions, (Pearson), 331
Improbable events, the highly, do not oc-
cur in empirical distributions, 321 ff^
333
Inductive probability, 313 ff.; a classical
application of, to results of experi-
ments in thought-transference, 335 f. ;
see Empirical and theoretical central
measures. Empirical and theoretical
distributions, Infinitesimal proba-
bility
Infinitesimal probability, 316, 346 ff. ; re-
liance upon, 296, 308; reliance upon,
not safe, (Johnson), 333; alleged or
real cases of, 348 ff., the probability
of which can be determined, from
Monte Carlo Roulette, 348 f.; pre-
dictions of conscription-numbers,
349 ; plays in French lottery,
349 f. ; throws of dice, 350 f. ; a
guessing competition, 351 ff. ; the
probability of which cannot be de-
termined, from coincidences in Lon-
don, 353, coincidences concerning an
engine, 354; "W. H. Wright," 354;
a ring, 355 ; a will, 355 f • ; a packet
of envelopes, 356; a roulette wheel,
356 ; a comet, 356 f . ; a lost bundle of
linen, 357 f.; a literary plot enacted
in life, 358 ; a dream of a drowning,
358; a dream of a bequest, 358 f.;
a dream of Canon Kingsley, 359;
simultaneous inventions and literary
creations, 360; a character in an
"April fool" letter whose double was
found, 360 ff.; cases of, can be ex-
pected to occur frequently, 363 ; may
be raised by common associations to
a high probability, illustrated by ex-
periment, 363!; by coincidences in
daily life, 364; fallacies underlying
reliance upon, 363, 365; disabilities
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633
of, may be removed by substituting
a more favorable procedure, 265 f.
Involuntary signals, may play a part in
thought-transference experiments,
(Pfungst), 21 f.; read by Clever
Hans, 171, and Beulah Miller, 172;
used in "guessing*' numbers, 223;
thought to be eliminated with con-
tact, (Sidgwick), 469
James, on a "critical state" necessary
for thought-transference, 34, 124,
137. 149; in agreement with Leh-
mann, 34 f.
"James, Prof. Wm.," a stance 'person-
ality,' spoke in "independent voice,
509 f., while psychic's respiration
was affected, 518 ff.; exerted force
on scales, 5^8 f., leaving imprint of
woven fabric, 350; gave encourage-
ment, 536 ; silent on psychology, 538 ;
reported in error on matter of fact,
539; made an imprint of a left hand
with his "right hand," 539
"John King," Eusapia Palladino's 'con-
trol,' substituted phenomena and
failed with scientific instruments,
527, 538
"Katie," Mrs. "Key's" 'control,' an auto-
matic voice, 509, 510, 514; anxious
to have the truth demonstrated, 515,
536 ; lacked knowledge of fact, 527 ;
reported phenomena with the scales,
528 f., table, 532, trumpet, 537, and
kymograph, 539 ; reported confidence
in the course of investigation, 541
Kent-Rosanoff word-reaction test, 285 f.
"Key," Mrs., the "trumpet" medium of
the California Psychical Research
Society, 503 ff . ; letter of commenda-
tion to, from Hyslop, 547 ; persuaded
by misguided advisers to discontinue
investigation, 548
L, Limit of chance deviation, formula
for, 82 f., 85 ; identical with Sanger's
limit, 85 f . ; related to Yule's "prac-
tical limit," 86; tables for, 89 ff.;
charts for, 91, 93; compared with
maximum deviations in results of
card-guessing, 87, 92 ff., 106, 122,
127 ff., expectation of reagents, 109,
no, results of experiments in sub-
liminal impression, 196, 200, 209,
21 1 ff. ; related to empirical and
theoretical distributions, 317 ff. ; com-
pared with theoretical central mea-
sures, 334 ff.
"Law of relative frequency," Minot's,
298; accounts for Schmoll's results.
(Minot), 299; would permit a prac-
ticable code capable of accounting
for the Smith-Blackburn results,
(Minot), 299 f.; not reckoned with
by English investigators, 300; tested
by Taylor, 300 f.
Local ghosts and the projection of vis-
ual images, (Martin), 413 ff.; cases
of apparitions, 413 ff. ; hallucination
dependent upon strong visual
imagery and emotional element, 413,
416 ff., 419, 421; questionnaire re-
turns on hallucinations by students,
420 ; frequency of auditory hallucina-
tions, 421
Lotto-block guessing, 31 ff. ; Mrs. Sidg-
wick's experiments in, 31 ff. ; suc-
cessful results in, 31 ; negative re-
sults in, 34; see Thought-transfer-
ence
MV, Mean variation, defined, 333
Magnetic sense, experiments on (Jas-
trow and Nuttall), 173
Mal-observation, 365; in perception of
speech, 369
Mark Twain's claim that "elaborate ac-
cidents cannot happ'en," 360, 363 ; his
"Mental Telegraphy," 354, 360
Medium's subconsciousness, a factor in
'phenomena,' (Hyslop), 547
Mediumistic possession, a type of alter-
nate personality, (James), 534, note
Mediums, confidence of, in telepathic
hypothesis, 125; their sincerity and
ready cooperation in experiments
with playing-cards, 125 f. ; experi-
ments with, 125 ff., 503 ff. ; may
readily impose upon great savants,
(Moll), 20
Mental communism, see Psychical com-
munism
Mental contribution to the perception of
speech, see Sound assimilation
Mental habit, the influence of, upon
judgment, 230 ff.; a genus of sub-
liminal influence, 230; applies to
numbers, in census aijre returns,
231 ff. ; in terms of criminal sen-
tence, 234. ; in estimates of star-mag-
nitudes, 240 ff., 294 ff. ; in students'
grades, 247 ff. ; in thermometric
readings, 249 ff.; in estimates of
cloudiness, 252; in readings of the
rain-gauge, 252 ; in estimates of time
from kymograph time-records, 252 f. ;
in ages of the Latin dead, 255; in
estimates of star-transits, 255 ff.;
in estimates of time, 262 f. ; in esti-
mates of space, 263 ff. ; in guessing of
seeds in a squash, 265 f. ; in guessing
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INDEX OF SUBJECTS
of beans in a bottle, 266 1; applies
to guessing of numbers in thought-
transference experiments, 268; to
guessing of spots on playing-cards,
268 f.; to guessing of the suit of
playing-cards, 278; to the guessing
of particular playing-cards, 279 f . ; to
the guessing of letters, 280?.; in-
fluences judgment of both unskilled
and skilled observers, 250; its form
has permanent personal character-
istics, 250, 251, 258, 259; was early
noticed by Beloch, Hartmann and
Peirce, 255 ; explanations of, 281 ff. ;
applications of, to experiments in
thought-transference, 291 ff. ; to ex-
periments on subliminal impression,
309 ff.; see Number-habit, Number-
preferences, "Personal scale"
, Explanatory considerations.
281 ff. ; superstitious notions of num
ber, 282 f.; odd numbers satisfying,
282, conspicuous. 283; natural phe-
nomena, 283; prime numbers, 2»3;
Chromxsthesia, 283 f.; associations,
284 ff. ; based on number-experiences,
284 f.; numbers personified, 284 f.;
acquired associations with letters,
cards, etc., 285 ; psychical communism
shown by word- reaction test, 285 f.,
307
, Formula for measuring extent
of influence of, 292; statistical
method for eliminating, 293 f.
, Influence of, in experiments on
thought-transference, 291 ff. ; not
usually large, 294; precautions
against, taken by the English investi-
gators, 303 ff., inadequate when free
materials were used,(Minot),299ff. ;
possible influence of, in Pickering's
experiments, 296 f.; is most likely
with "free drawings," 297 ff., and
other indefinite material, 296, 305;
influence of, in experiments on sub-
liminal impression, negligible, 209 ff. ;
see Psychical communism
Mental habits, other, besides number-
habit, 276 ff.; are unconscious in-
fluences, 281 ; see Psychical com-
munism
"Mental telepathist," the making of a,
118 ff.
Milton's "Paradise Lost" may be pro-
duced by chance drawings of letters
from a bag, (Venn), 149, note 229;
but such an occurrence is "incon-
ceivably unlikely," 316, note 140
Monte Carlo roulette, plays at, 348;
Pearson's investigation of, 329 ff-;
not a scientific game of chance,
(Pearson), 330 f.
Myers' dictum concerning the inability
of the human mind to make impar-
tial random choices, 304, 325, note 151
"Myers, F. W. H.," a seance *person-
ality,' revealed lack of knowledge to
Lodge, 539. note
n, number of experiments in a set, 81,
95; formula for finding, to prove
extra-chance cause, L being constant,
83 f.
"Nasium, John," an imaginary person
whose double was found, 361
New England Meteorological Society,
observations of, show influence of
mental habit, 252, 253
Nonsense-syllables, used in experiments
in Sound assimilation, 373 ff.; lists
of, 450 f .
Number-habit, 267; desirability of study
of, (Titchener), 229; in Lotto-block
guessing, 43; a general mental trait,
271 ff. ; individual differences in, 252,
271 ff. ; general agreement in, 270,
273 ff., 311; distribution of, 271 ff.;
see Mental habit, Psychial commun-
ism
Number-preferences, individual differ-
ences in, 268 f., 271 ff. ; common, 270,
273; vary with conditions, 268
"N"-Ray delusion, the, 495; ff., illustrates
the fallacy of the "fagot theory,"
500 f.
p, Probability of the single occurrence of
an event, 80 f. ; 95
P, Probability of, or the probable fre-
quency of, an event, 97, 128, 337 ff.,
346 ff.; of a distribution of events
(closeness of fit), 108, 315 ff.; for-
mulae for, 80, 95 f., no
PEj^, Probable error of the mean, de-
fined, 333; an application of the law
of chances, 333 f. ; formula for, io«;,
33.^; formula for, based on the MV,
.378
Paris observatory, observations from,
show influence of mental habit, 256
"Patience Worth," 316
Pearson's "Closeness of fit" and its prob-
. ability, formula for, no, 315; in-
vestiq:ation of Monte Carlo roulette,
329 ff.
"Pelham, Georee," a late 'control* of Mrs.
Piper, thought by Hodeson to be a
veritable personality that has sur-
vived death. 7
"Personal equation," 260 ff.; see "Per-
sonal scale"
"Personal scale," the same as f Sguation
dicimale and Peirce's "time-scale,"
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INDEX OF SUBJECTS
635
256; distinguished from the "per-
sonal equation," 260 flF.; influences
estimates of ages, star-magnitudes,
students' grades, etc., 265, when it is
dependent upon number-preferences
and a psychical communism, 286 ; in-
fluences more especially estimates of
temperature, rain-fall, star-transits,
etc., where it is free from the
influence of number-preferences,
286 ff. ; is independent of kind of in-
strument, 258, 259, of method of ob-
serving, 258, 259, of special senses,
260, 261 ; is dependent upon calibra-
tion-marks, 260, 261, and upon cali-
bration-spacing, 263 ff. ; explanatory
considerations, 286 ff. ; not owing to
number-preferences, 287 f. ; depends
upon calibration-marks, 287, calibra-
tion-spaces, 289, tendency for "like"
judgments, 289, for underestimating
small differences, 289, space illusions,
289 f., methods of estimation, 290, im-
perfections of the eye, 290
*(y) value, table for, referred to, 81 ;
short table of, for varying values of
Y, 314, note
"Phillips," the late wireless operator of
the unfortunate Titanic "operated"
the telegraph instrument, 528, but
seems to have lost his knowledge of
telegraphy, 539
"Phinuit." Mrs. Piper's 'control,' thousrht
by Hodeson to be a fictitious "soirit,"
7 ; by Podmore to be an etymological
descendent of Cocke's 'Tinn6," 54i ;
given test for telepathy or lucidity
(Professor and Mrs. Sidcrwick), 142
"Physical ohenomena," relation of, to the
psychic's body, .«>24 ff.
Physical Society of London, publications
of, reveal the n-ray delusion, 495
Pikes Peak weather service, observations
of, show influence of mental habit,
249
Piper, Mrs., given card-test for telep-
athy, (James), 142; see "Phinuit"
Poisson's theorem, applied to thought-
transference results, 82 ff.
Population by aee, shows influence of
common number-habits, 231 ff
Prediction of number of male and fe-
male births and of deaths for a
week in London. 'K^\ f. ; of conscrip-
tion-numbers in Belcrium, 349
Preyer's use of inductive probability in
discreditin? Richet's results, ^lla-
cious, 335 ff.
Probability, of a deviation less than 4a,
determination of, 334, note 165 ; of an
event, depends upon number of cases,
illustrations to show that, 346 ff. ; of
k occurrences in « trials, formula
for, (Laurent), 96
, Inductive, 313 ff.; provided
for in "control" experiments, 313, in
Lotto-block guessing, 35, in card-
guessing, 52, in experiments on the
"feeling of being stared at," 147;
conforms to theoretical probability
in both distributions, 314 ff., 333,
and central measures, 333 ff., 345 f. ;
see Empirical and theoretical cen-
tral measures, Empirical and theo-
retical distributions
-, Theory of, 312 ff.; and form-
ulae derived therefrom, an instru-
ment of precision for detecting ex-
tra-chance cause, 345; a means of
resolving doubt concerning alleged
supernormal psychical phenomena,
229, 313 f» 333; confirmed by em-
pirical results, 313 ff., 333, in the
distributions of chance events,
314 ff., 328, 333, and in central
measures from sets of chance
events, 333 ff-, 345^.; justified by
statistical results, 108; formulae de-
rived from, applied to single meas-
ures in card-guessing, 80 ff., 105 ff.,
127 ff., in experiments on subliminal
impression, 185, 194 ff., in series of
chance events, 333 ff. ; applied to dis-
tributions of R cases in card-guess-
ing, 95 ff., 108, iiof, to distributions
of events in empirical chance series,
314 ff.
Probable events, the least, occur in
empirical distributions of chance
events with a frequency in close con-
formance with the law of chances,
321 ff., 333, and the relatively or
highly improbable in their due pro-
portions, (Pearson), 331, 346 ff.,
363
Pseudo-prophecy, a case of, (Martin),
411 f.
Psychical communism, 285; results
from the fact that minds are simi-
larly constituted, 285; makes psy-
chology possible, 285!; permits de-
velopment of language, 285 f. ; recog-
nized by writers (Minot), 298 f.,
(Podmore), 305; illustrated by
word-reaction experiment, 285, and
by common chain of ideas, 307 ; pro-
hibits reliance upon an infinitesimal
probability, 296; precludes use of
free materials in thought-transfer-
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636
INDEX OF SUBJECTS
cncc experiments, 305; denies value
to "spontaneous cases" of telepathy,
306 {.; works for remarkable co-
incidences, 363 f.; makes an appar-
ently improbable event highly prob-
able, 340, 363 f.
Psychical research, foundation for, at
Stanford University, (AngelH,
xixff. ; slow progress of, (Angell),
XX ; psychological laboratories fav-
orable toward, (Angell), XX ; psy-
chological training requisite for,
(Angell), xxif.; library of, pro-
vided for by Mr. T. W. Stanford,
(Angell), xxi, 551
Psychological laboratories, favorable to-
ward psychical research, (Angell),
XX ; hospitable to investigation of
telepathy — Clark, Gjmell, Harvard,
—21, 28
training necessary for psychi-
cal research, (Angell), xxif.;
for investigation of telepathy,
(Tuckett), 27, (Scripture), 28; 501
q, the complement of p, the probability
of the single non-occurrence of an
event, 80 f., 95
r, (Coefficient of correlation, formulae
for, (Brown), 202, note
Rain-fall, estimates of, show influence of
mental habit, 252
Relation of the "physical phenomena"
to the psychic's body, 524 ff.
Relation of the stance 'personalities' to
the psychic's mind, 535 ff .
Relation of the "voices" to the psychic's
psychological processes, 506 ff.
Respiration curves of the psychic while
"voices" are speaking in dark stance,
516 ff.
Rogers-Abbott case, mentioned in Hy-
slop's letter to Mrs. "Key," 547
"Roland, Colonel," one of Mrs. "Ke/s"
'controls,' uses "independent" voice
through 'trumpet,' 509; exerted
force on scales, 529; wiped off
cover with fabric, 530; handled
'trumpet* with sooty fabric, 530;
shoved table, 532; perplexed about
printer's ink, 537; in error on mat-
ter of fact, 537 f.; misused force,
537 f. ; reported delighted with prog-
ress of investigation, 541
Romanes and Crichton-Browne, test
Smith-Blackburn procedure in
thought-transference experiments,
490
Roulette, Pearson's investigation of
Monte Carlo, 3^ff.
Roulette-ball throws, runs in, not in ac-
cord with the law of chances, 328 ff.
Roulette wheel, coincidence concerning
a, 356
Royal Alfred Observatory, astronomer
of, finds influence of mental habits
in observations, 249
S, inverted, showing space illusion, 289
o, Standard deviation, formula for, the
empirical, 105, 333, the theoretical,
334, note 164; is the "measure of
dispersion," 334; becomes the
"standard erroP* when p is known,
334; is used by Yule as a practical
limit of chance deviation (36), 86,
3I7» 330; see Yule's practical limit
Savants, great, unable to spread their
authority in other fields over psy-
chical research (Angell), xxi;
(Bramwell), 19, (Moll), 20; readily
imposed upon by mediums, (Moll),
20
Science, (Jordan), v
Scientific method in psychical research,
(Jordan), v; (Angell), xix; 542 f.
"Stance personalities," relation of, to
the psychic's mind, 535 ff.
phenomena, investigation of,
503 ff. ; see 'Trumpet" Medium
Sensorial gateway, principle of, 31, 501
Sensory indications, may operate with-
out being discerned by the person
whom they influence. (Stout), 173
Seybert Commission, referred to by Hall,
471; a medium of, failed in a Cali-
fornia Society test, 531 ; purpose and
findings of, (Angell), xixf.; work
of, in addition to professional duties,
(Angell), xxi
Sidgwick's, Mrs., experiments in Lotto-
block guessing, 31 ff.
"Significant" deviation, a, not found in
sets of 50 guesses of playing-cards,
66, 92 ; in sets of 500, 87, 92 ; or in a
set of 5000, 94 ; analyses of data may
reveal, 66 ff.; may be determined
by use of mathematical formulae,
79 ff., 961, 108, or by use of tables
' and charts, 88 ff. ; in values expected
by reagents, 109 ff.; in results from
corneal reflection, 121 ff. ; in results
from subliminal impression, 185,
188, 196, 200, 109, 216, 217 f., 220;
in data showing influence of mental
habit, 269 ff., 295: in chance events,
324 ff., 344 f-; falls beyond the dis-
tribution of chance events, 334, de-
pendent upon number of observa-
tions, 346 ff. ; see L
"Simple sampling," (Yule), 334
Smith-Blackburn experiments, the, 299 f ^
300,302, 303; 477 ff.
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INDEX OF SUBJECTS
637
Society for Psychical Research, present
work of, 3, 535; officers quoted on
telepatliy, 5, 7, 18, 19, 24 ff-, 29 f ., 34,
124, 226, 302 ff . ; began its work on
the telepathic problem, 17; has re-
turned to it, 23; work of, referred
to, (Moll), 19 f., (Hall), 21, 28, 48 f.,
470 ff., 482 f., (Minot), 298 f. ; 420 f.,
461 ff.; (Tuckett) 490
Sound assimilation, experiments in,
367 ff . ; need of experiment in, 369 f. ;
problem stated, 371 ; extent of work
done, 371 f. ; lists of nonsense-sylla-
bles used, 373 ff ., 450 f. ; number
of experiments with the various
lists, 375; mental contribution to
perception of syllables with initial
and final consonantal sounds, 378 f.,
401 f. ; of syllables with either an in-
itial or a final consonantal sound, 380,
401 ; of the respective sounds, 381 ;
of English speech, 383 f., 401 ; dicta-
tions of simulated English text,
386 ff., made use of most frequent
substitutions of sounds, 386; men-
tal contribution to perception of
English text, 395 ff., 401 f. ; not suffi-
ciently recognized in psychical re-
search, 402; perception of a word
not a purely auditory affair, 403, but
is subject to process of assimilation
in commqn with perception through
other senses, 403 ; visual assimilation
illustrated, 403 f. ; results consistent
with psychological doctrine, as
shown by quotations from the liter-
ature, '404 ff .
Space illusions, 289 f.
Speech, mental contribution to the per-
ception of, (James), 368; see Sound
assimilation
Spiritistic advisers, illogical stand of,
548
Star-magrnitudes, estimates of, show m-
fluence of mental habit, 240 ff ., 294 ;
estimates of, tested for a possible
disturbance by thought-transference,
(Pickering), 294
Star-transits, estimates of, show influ-
ence of mental habit, 255 ff.
Statistical formulae, applied to results of
card-guessing by normal reagents,
105 ff., by professional 'psychics',
128; see Probability, theory of
method of experiment in card-
guessing, vindicated by results with
corneal reflection, 123
"Stead, William," a stance 'personality.*
could not recall his daughter's
name, 538
Stimulus, an unnoticed, can still affect
consciousness, (Eckener), 173
Students, favorably disposed toward the
telepathic hypothesis, xxii, ^H^ 5i»
123, 145, 152, 164 f.
, grades of, show influence of
mental habit, 247 ff. ; cannot be made
accurate on percentile scale, 248 ; re-
liability of grades of, tested by
Starch, 248, note 21
Subconscious, an experimental study of
the, (Martin), 422 ff. ; image method
employed, 422; results concerning
voluntary and involuntary imagery
and memory, 422 ff. ; the image
method vs. the automatic writing
and speaking methods, 426 ff. ; vs.
the pathological and psychoanalytical
methods, 427 f.
phenomena, influence of men-
tal habits upon judgment, a form of,
230
Subliminal classification, alleged (Sidis),
182, 184; negative results on, 185,
204, 221, 224
impression, an explanation for
telepathy, (Lehmann), 33, 171,
(Tuckett), 173, note 2, (Pfungst),
21 f., (Murray), 226; operative in
thought-transference experiments,
(Podmore), 493; facilitates percep-
tion, 202; influence of, related to
phenomena of dissociation of per-
sonality, hypnotism, automatic writ-
ing, crystal-gazing, (Sidis), 177, psy-
chical research should investigate,
(Bergson, Balfour), 170; highly im-
portant for psychology, (James),
184; literature bearing on, 172 ff.;
experiments on, (Dunlap), 176 f.,
(Titchener and Pyle), 177. (Mangro
and Washburn), 177. (Sidis), I77 ff.,
Stroh, Shaw, and Washburn), 186 ff. ;
with Wirthian tachistoscope, 191 ff. ;
with Wundtian tachistoscope, 198 ff. ;
through foveal vision, 191 ff. ;
through peripheral vision, 205 ff.;
from corneal reflections of playing-
cards, 214 ff.; from playing-cards at
a distance, 217 ff.; from whispering
of letters and digits, 220 f.; from
whispering of playing-cards, 222;
from various stimuli: posture,
(Pfungst), 171; crepitation of elec-
tro-magnet, (Jastrow and Nuttall),
173: differences in brightness,
(Peirce and Jastrow), 173; differ-
ences in weights, (Stratton), 173^-;
geometric figures, (Moore), 174;
letters, 174; touch of playing-cards.
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INDEX OF SUBJECTS
(Vcrrall), 174 f.; names and signs,
(Scripture), 175; odor of a flower,
(Jerusalem), 175 f.; odor of coal-
smpke, (Thomas), 176; impercep-
tible shadows, (Dunlap), 176,
(Titchener and Pyle), 177; impar-
ceptible lines, (Mangro and Wash-
bum), 177; letters and digits ex-
posed at a distance, (Sidis), 178 ff.,
(Stroh, Shaw and Washburn),
186 ff.; whispered letters, (Stroh,
Shaw and Washburn), 187; letters
and digits exposed instantaneously,
190 ff . ; corneal reflections of playing-
cards, 214 ff. ; whispering of letters
and digits, 220 f. ; whispering of play-
ing-cards, 222 ; application of mental
habit to experiments on, 309 ff.
perception, of geometric figures.
(Moore), 174; of letters, (Coover),
174; of playing-cards, (Mrs. Verrall),
174; as an explanation of thought-
transference, 171 ; influences judg-
ment, 173 ff. ; effects reproduction
of experience, 175 ff. ; see Subliminal
impression
"Sufficient evidence," is evidence that
will convince, the scientific world,
(Sidgwick), 463
"Suggestion mentale" (Richet), an-
nounced, 29; results indicative of,
(Richet), 48 f.; method of calcula-
tion, questioned, (Gurney), 24;
should be verified, (Richet, Gurney,
Sidgwick, Myers), 23 f., 50; ques-
tioned, (James), 34, 47, 124, 149
Supernorrial powers, attributed by James
to Mrs. Piper, 3 f. ; attributed by
Floumoy to Helene "Smith," 4; at-
tributed by Podmore to automatists,
4; see Survival
Superstition, among the students of the
State Normal Schools. (Dresslar),
282; connected with numbers, 282
Survival, evidence of, in trance utter-
ances. (Myers), 5; in the utterances
of "George Pelham," (Hodgson).
7; in Piper sittings, (Lodge), 8; in
the Piper sittings, may be reduced
to telepathy from the sitter, (Pod-
more), 9; or from a third living
person, (Lang), 10, (Podmore), 10 f. ;
in cross-correspondences, (John-
son), 12, 12 f., may be reduced to
telepathy, (Johnson), 11, 11 f.,
(Pigou), 12, (Podmore), 13
'Telepathie d trois" 6; in Mrs. Piper's
utterances, (Lang), 10; in utter-
ances of trance personalities, (Pod-
more), 10 f.; is not proved,
^'Lodge), 13 f.
Telepathy, importance of the prob-
lem of, 3; threatens proof of sur-
vival, 3, 5 f ., 6 f . ; called by Lodge
"the minimum hypothesis," 5;
from the "sitter's" conscious or sub-
liminal experience, 6ff. ; accounts
for independent reproduction of sim-
ilar ideas through two or more
automatists (cross-correspondences,
simple), (Johnson, Pigou), 11; and
for such reproduction of ideas the
significant relation between which
is only later discovered (cross-cor-
respondences, complementary).
(Johnson), 11 f., (Pigou), 12; its
dominating role challenged, J3 ff. ;
as supported by Telepathie d trois,
is not proved, (Lodge), 13 f.; as
supported by "spontaneous cases"
(apparitions), is not proved, (Pod-
more), 14!, (Carrington, Tuckett,
James), 15; as supported by direct
experiment, is not proved, (Hy-
slop), 15, (James), 15 f., (Jastrow).
16, (Thomas), 16 f., (Hermit of
Prague), 28, (Tuckett, Minot.
Hall), 502; the present status of.
17 ff., 499 ff. ; still a claimant for
scientific recognition, (Mrs. Sidjr-
wick, Podmore, Constable), 18,
(Tuckett), 18 f., 22, (Thomas,
Bramwell). 19, (Moll), 19 f.,
(Newcomb), 20. (Angell), 22;
its acceptance unwarranted and
rnfortunate, (Jastrow), 21, (Hall),
2T. 501 ; based upon experi-
mental errors, (Pfungst), 21 f.; no
scientifically-minded psychologist be-
lieves in it, (Titchener), 22: nega-
tive results in, (Bramwell), 19,
(Moll-Dessoir), 20, (Hall), 21,
(S. P. R.), 23, (Am. S. P. R.), 24;
is not a subject of controversy,
Barrett's dictum that. 502, contro-
verted by Tuckett. Minot, and Hall,
502: further work in, imperative.
23 ff . ; work on, still being done by
Lodge and the S. P. R., 23; early
successful experimental results in
need of verification, (Richet), 23 f.,
(Myers. Sidgwick. Gurney). 24,
(Stewart). 24 f., (Podmore, James,
S. P. R.), 25. (Lodee, Bergson,
Thomas). 26, (Tuckett), 27; psy-
chological method in investigating,
necessary, (Tuckett, Scripture).
27 f., 501 ; psych oloorical laboratories
hospitable to— Clark, Cornell, Har-
vard,— 21. 28 ; program of the "Her-
mit of Prague" commended, 28;
through emotion, (Newcomb), 144;
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a common faculty shared by all men,
(Myers, Richet, Gurney, Bergson),
29; should be tested by further ex-
periments, (Lodge), 30 (Richet),
34; students fayorably disposed to-
ward, xxii, Z7, 5i» 123, 145, 152,
164 f.; "experienced" in the labora-
tory by normal reagents, 117, by 'sen-
sitives,* 142 f. ; negative results from
normal reagents, 46 f., 124, 152, 167,
from 'sensitives,' 129 f., 142 ; may
require a "critical state," (James),
34, 124, 137, 149, (Lehmann), 34 f.;
see Thought-transference, "Feeling
of being stared at"
Telepathy-at-a-distance, 3 ; explains
cross-correspondences, (Pigou), 11;
evidence for, without weight, (Pod-
more), 14 f.; illustrates psychical
communism, (Tuckett), 301 f.; see
Thought-transference, long-distance
Telephone used in experiments in sound
assimilation, 373
Thermometric readings show influence
of mental habit, 249 ff.
Thompson-Gifford case, mentioned in
Hyslop's letter to Mrs. "Key," 547
Thought-transference, definition of, 3;
most likely of evanescent ideas on
the threshold between consciousness
and sub-consciousness, (Tlournoy),
9 f . ; experiments on, 29 ff ; a com-
mon faculty shared by all men,
(Myers, Richet, Gurney, Bergson),
29; desirability of testing normal
persons for, (Lodge), 30; extent of
our experiments on, 30: (i) Guess-
ing of Lotto-block numbers, 31 flF. ;
unsettled status of old results. 31 ff. ;
method of experiment, 35 ff. ; re-
sults, 38 ff ., 46 f. ; imagery, 45 f.,
tendency to project subjective ex-
perience, 47. (2) Guessing of play-
ing-cards, by normal reagents, 48 ff. ;
old successful results, 48 f. ; old neg-
ative results, 49; suitability of cards
as material, 49 f.; reagents, 50 f.;
method, 51 ff.; results, 54 ff.; rela-
tion between R cases and congruity
of imagery, yi ff. ; relation between
R cases and the feeling of certainty,
73 ff. ; relation between R cases and
variation in distance, 77, and in
time, 77 f.; test for retarded effect,
78 f.; application of probability for-
mulae to central measures, 80 ff. ;
tables and charts of the limits of
chance deviation, 89 ff.; comparison
of the empirical with their theoret-
ical distributions, 95 ff-. 108; appli-
cation of usual statistical formula
to central and other single measures,
105 ff. ; statistical expectation of re-
agents, 109 f.; analysis of experi-
ence, 1 10 ff. ; variation in certainty of
the guess, 112 f.; imagery, 112 ff.;
elements of experience upon which
feeling of certainty depended, 113 ff. ;
sensory and motor automatisms, 117;
telepathy "experienced" in the labo-
ratory, 117; application of our re-
sults in the making of a "mental
telepathist," 118 ff.; control series
with corneal reflection, 121 ff. ; con-
clusion, 123 f. ; may require for suc-
cess a "critical state" of experience,
(James), 34, 124, (Lehmann), 34 f.
(3) Experiments with 'sensitive* rc^
agents, 125 ff. ; half of them spirit-
istic 'mediums,* 125; results, ii5ff. ;
test for retarded effect, 129; psy-
chological analysis of experience,
130 ff.; the professional 'psychics,'
130 ff.; the private psychics, 137 ff.;
conclusion, 142 f. ; possible factors
of error in : mental habit, and induc-
tive probability, 229; influence of
mental habit in experiments on,
291 ff. ; statistical method for elimin-
ating effect of mental habit from the
results of experiments on, 293 f. ;
subliminal perceptions enter into,
(Pfungst), 21 f., (Lehmann), 33;
(Tuckett), 173, note 12, (Murray),
226, (Podmore), 493; as possible
error in estimations of star-magni-
tudes, tested, (Pickering), 294 ff.;
see "Feeling of being stared at,"
Telepathy.
, long distance, experiments in,
452 ff. ; desirability of experiments
in, (Podmore, Vcrrall), 452; alleged,
(Paracelsus), 452; instructions for
experiments in, 453 ff. ; blanks used
in, 456 ff.; results of, 459 ff.; could
be conducted between distant per-
sons especially en rapport, 460; see
Telepathy-at-a-distance
-, grounds for scientific caution
in the acceptance of the "proof of,
461 ff. : caution counseled by mem-
bers of the English Committee,
461 f., who appreciated methods of
science and criterion of truth; yet
regarded the evidence for thought-
transference as sufficient for proof,
462 f. ; scientific world not con-
vinced, 463; characteristics of the
evidence illustrated: (i) By the
Creery Experiments, 463 ff., to which
Gurney referred as convincing, 463;
mathematical proof of extra-chance
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640
INDEX OF SUBJECTS
influence, 463 f . ; collusion and error
thought eliminated, 464 f. ; peculiar-
ities of results pointed out to support
telepathic hypothesis, 465 ff . ; publi-
cation of the apparently authentic
evidence elicited criticism specifying
sources of error, 468 ff., (Donkin),
469 f., (Hall), 470 ff.; fraud de-
tected in further experiments, 472 f. ;
further publication of older results
suppressed, 474; the peculiarities of
results used to support the telepathic
hypothesis strongly indicate the use
of code, 474 ff. (2) By the Smith-
Blackburn Experiments, 477 ff. ; sam-
ples shown, 478 f. ; experiments with
drawings, 479 ff. ; detailed description
of, 480 f. ; illustration of the famous
No. 22, 481 ; criticism of the series,
(Hall), 482 f., (Minot), 299 f-. 4^3;
reply by Podmore, 483 f. ; Black-
burn's confession of code, 484 ff.,
487 ff. ; denial by Smith, 486 f ., 48? ;
Society expresses confidence in
Smith, 490; Tuckett*s resume, 490;
Romanes and Crichton-Browne
scented fraud, 490; re-publication of
series suppressed by the Society,
491 ; internal evidence of code, 491 f. ;
external evidence of code, 492 ;
other evidence published by the So-
ciety not free from criticism, 493;
criticism of the Guthrie-Birchall
series, (Moll), 493» (Hall), 493;
Smith acted as agent in the Society's
best series with hypnotized reagents,
493; the Society not alive to the
difficulties of such, investigation, 494;
their "fagot theory" fallacious, 495t
illustrated by the n-ray delusion,
495 ff. ; summary of the situation,
499 ff. ; technical experience in ex-
perimental psychology is pre-requi-
site for investigators, 27 f., 501 ;
hope for the Society lies in the pro-
gram of the "Hermit of Prague,"
502
"Time-scale," Peirce's, 256; see "Per-
sonal scale."
"Truman, Dr.," one of the 'controls' of
Mrs. "Key," 505, spoke in "inde-
pendent" 'trumpet' voice, 509^1
' while psychic's respiration was af-
fected, 515 ff. ; pleased with the ex-
periments, 536; commended the in-
vestigation, 541.
"Trumpet" medium, investigation with
a, 503 ff.; Mrs. "Key," a semi-pro-
fessional medium of note, 503 f. ;
alleged phenomena reported by her
observers, 504 f.; failure of the
'controls* to take the card-experi-
ment, 505, 535; observations of the
customary seance phenomena,
506 ff.: (i) Relation of the "voices"
to the psychic's physiological pro-
cesses, 506 ff. ; as reported from
the literature, 506 ff.; as shown by
kymograph records of respiration
and carotid pulse, 507 ff.; appara-
tus, 508; chronicle of records,
509 f.; records, 510; curves
shown, 512 ff., 516 ff. ; hypothesis
of sympathetic activity examined,
520 f.; curves, 522; further inves-
tigation projected, 524. (2) Rela-
tion of the "physical phenomena" to
the psychic's body, 524 ff. ; as re-
ported from the literature, 524 £.,
527; as indicated by observation.
525 ff. ; displacement of tubing,
525 f.; smudge on the drum, 526;
scale-cover records, 528 ff.; print-
er's ink, 531 ; operating of the tele-
graph instrument, 531 f. ; tying of
psychic not important, 532 f.; anaes-
thesia for automatic phenomena,
532 f., note 43; amnesia for som-
nambulistic phenomena, 533 ^^ note
44; further investigation projected,
534. (3) Relation of the "S^nce
personalities" to the psychic's mind,
535 ff. ; willing cooperation of psy-
chic and 'controls,* 536; apprehen-
sion, after opportunities were pro-
vided for contact phenomena, 536 f. ;
misuse of force, 537; substitution
of undesignated phenomena, 538;
limitation of controls' knowledge,
538 ff . ; reproduction of past ex-
perience, 540 f., note 49; principles
of interpretation, 542 f. ; further
work projected, 535!, 543 f.; al-
ternative explanations by members
of the Society, 544 ff. ; the projected
continuation of investigation hang-
ing fire, 546 f .
Truth, articulation with organized
knowledge is test of new, (Jordan),
V ; criterion of, must come from rec-
ognized departments of knowledge,
(Gumey), 462; agreement of ex-
perts is final test of, (Sidgwick),
468
Tying of 'medium' not important, 532
U-form curve, typical of scientific esti-
mates, 247, 249, 254; typical of a
common "personal scale," 265, 286
Unconscious association, (Scripture,
Jerusalem, Thomas), I75f.; a re-
markable performance in, 212!
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INDEX OF SUBJECTS
641
cerebration," (Carpenter, Lay-
cock), 172
psychical elements, (Kulpe),
172 f.
psychical stimuli, (Lipps), 172
whispering, as a factor in
thought-transference, 31 ff.
U. S. Census shows influence of mental
habit in age returns, 231 ff., 253, and
in criminal sentences, 234 ff., 253
Unknown tongues, speaking in, see
Glossolalia
Unrecognized stimuli, affect judgment
in experiments on sensible discrim-
ination, (Peirce and Jastrow), 173
Venn's statement that an3rthing may oc-
cur by chance, 149, 316
Vision, augmented in hypnotized sub-
jects, (Bergson), 174; (Sauvaire),
175
Visual images, projection of, and local
ghosts, (Martin), 413, see Local
ghosts
"Voices," relation of, to the psychic's
physiological processes, 506 ff.
Wirthian tachistoscope, used in experi-
ments on subliminal impression,
191 ff.
"Wise-Knut," hears voices singing and
follows text with his finger, (Bjom-
son), 368
Word-reaction experiment, illustrates
psychical communism, 285 f., 307,
363f.
Wundtian tachistoscope, used in experi-
ments on subliminal impression,
198 ff.
Yule's "practical limit" of chance devia-
tion, 86; related to empirical and
theoretical distributions, 317 ff.;
conforms with Pearson's practice,
330; see L
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